


All that Remains

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Caelums on the run, Creepy Ardyn Izunia, Dadfic, Enemies to Allies, Minor Character Death, Slavery AU, Slow Burn, dark au with a happy ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: The Lucis Caelums were never kings.Given their gifts by the gods as a means to eradicate the Scourge, the Caelums were promptly enslaved and used as human weapons in Lucis' war against Niflheim and the encroaching daemonic threat. Hundreds of years ago, they escaped, and their descendants have been on the run ever since.Noctis and his father are the last of their line, and they will do whatever it takes to keep their family whole. A fill from the kinkmeme!





	1. Chapter 1

Noctis Lucis Caelum's eighth birthday fell on the hottest day in August, three days after the air conditioning broke in the beat-up family car. Mosquitos hung lethargic in the air, buzzing around oil slicks and open mouths, and red dust coated the wheels and clung to Noct's skin as his father drove them through the sweltering desert of Liede.

"Five times nine," Regis Caelum said.

Noct, who was lying on his back amid the old sheets they used as a bed, stared at his dad through the rearview mirror. "Dad."

"Five times nine," Regis said again.

"Dad, no," Noct groaned. He kicked his feet against the passenger seat. "It's too hot for math."

"Then we'll switch to history," Regis said. Noct groaned louder. Outside, dualhorns stamped in the dirt, milling around the shells of broken-down cars.

"Can't I go to school?" Noct asked. "Mom went to school. Mom went to college. We can go back to Lestallum and stay in a hotel or something. Or a parking lot. With shade."

"You know why we can't do that, Noctis," his father said. His eyes crinkled up in the corners, the way they always did when he talked about Mom.

Noct sighed. He'd liked Lestallum. They stayed there for a whole three months last time, long enough for Noct to make a few friends, find where all the stray cats lived, and get a taste for the greasy brown meat that food truck vendors gave away at the end of the night. But then something went and scared his dad, like always, and they had to pack up and leave. Again.

"No one's gonna find us," Noct muttered, rolling to his side. "Not like we even use magic in the open."

His dad said nothing. He didn't have to. Noct knew as well as he did that it didn't matter how well they hid their magic--If they made the wrong move, said the wrong thing, befriended the wrong person, it was all over. Every town they went to, every outpost and haven, every truck stop, Noct and Regis searched for signs of others in the Caelum clan. People who had to rely on secret symbols carved in the rock outside town to know who passed through, or to tell if the town was safe or not. People like them. And everywhere they went, they found no one. Not even a cousin, or a cousin's cousin, not even someone who could make the air go cold or start a fire without a match.

It seemed like Noct and Regis were the only Caelums left. And if they were, it meant that they couldn't risk getting caught. Not with Niflheim at the borders. Not with daemons prowling the wastes.

In the end, all they had was each other.

"One day," Regis said, cranking the window up a little as a truck roared by, belching exhaust, "I'll have to take you to one of the first havens, where our ancestors escaped the armies of Lucis."

 _Where they escaped their masters,_ Noct thought. He'd seen a painting of it in the history book his dad gave to him: A mage, shackled and collared, their lead held by a man in red, bringing fire down on a battlefield. Noct knew how to call fire, of course, but the thought of doing it to kill someone made his stomach roll. The idea that there were people out there who still thought this was okay, who would put chains on his dad and turn him against the empire, was worse.

"Forty-five," Noct said. Regis glanced at him again, and Noct saw him wince, his brows knit tight. "Five times nine is forty-five."

They stopped at the Hammerhead garage an hour later. It was one of the few places where Regis still had a friend from the old days, and Noct rolled out of the car to the sound of Cid Sophiar hauling himself out of the plastic patio chair by the garage door. Noct pumped five gil worth of gas into the car while his dad clapped Cid on the back and retrieved two sodas from a cooler, and grinned when his dad gestured to the diner at the other end of the lot.

"Really?" Noct wiped his hands on his jeans. "We never get to go out to eat!"

"Well, it _is_ someone's birthday," Regis said, and ducked into the car. There was a flicker of light, the tickle of magic at the back of Noct's hands, and Regis emerged holding a package wrapped in gauzy yellow paper. Noct scrambled around the car to his side.

"No way," Noct said, bouncing on his toes at his dad's side. "No way. When'd you get me something? What is it? Where's it from?"

"Food first, birthday boy," Regis said, slinging an arm around Noct's shoulder. They walked into the diner together, and Noct took a second to bask in the gust of AC at the door.

"Wow," he said, breathing in the smell of frying food and sizzling gumbo. "This is nice."

 

-

 

Gladiolus Amicitia, age eleven, sat at the edge of an old diner booth with his chin in one hand, staring glumly at the door. They were too far from town to get home in time for dinner, and since his dad was in the area anyways, looking for supplies for one of his mage traps, they'd stopped at the dinkiest little hole-in-the-wall he could find. Iris bounced at Gladio's side and shoved a crayon over her placemat, unbothered by the smell of grease and the hiss of the fryer.

"Lookin' good," Gladio said, tapping the drawing.

"I can pick anything?"

Gladio turned to the counter. Some kid was there with his dad, standing on his toes to look up at the menu. His hair had that greasy, unwashed look Gladio recognized from the street kids back home, the ones Jared paid to clean up the yard or run errands in town. His skin was sunburned, and his dad walked with a limp, a cloth brace wrapped around his knee. When his dad laughed and nodded, the kid pointed to the cheapest meal on the menu.

"That one."

"Are you sure?" The dad looked awkward, his lips thinning. "We can afford more. It's your birthday, Noctis."

Gladio quickly looked away.

"Gladdy," Iris whispered, and Gladio looked down to find her shoving her placemat in his face.

"Woah," Gladio said. "You're a real artist, Iris!"

Iris glowed.

Gladio kept looking over at the kid and his dad, though, even when his own father came back with a bag full of new metal rods for detecting magic. He tuned out what his dad was saying, picking at his own meal while the other kid tore into his, talking excitedly. A yellow package sat on the table between the boy and his dad, and the boy reached out to touch it so much that the dad sighed and raised his hands in surrender.

The kid pawed through the paper and pulled out a crummy-looking blue t-shirt with a cartoon fish on the front.

"Oh, man!" he cried, loud enough for Gladio's dad to notice, looking up from where he was cutting up Iris' food. "From the festival? The one I...? Dad!"

"Don't stare," Gladio's father said. Gladio turned back to his own food, suddenly unsure. For his last birthday, Gladio had gotten a bike, three books, and a brand new sword. He picked up a limp fry and caught his dad looking at him.

"That's how it is, outside of the city," his dad said. "That's how it'll always be until we can drive the daemons back."

"And we need a mage for that," Gladio said. "I know."

A few booths over, the boy and his father had stopped talking.

"Tonight, when we get home, I'll teach you how to set a mage trap." His dad tapped the bag on the floor with his foot. "You'll need to learn how to drain a mage's mana before you can put them on a lead. They're wild when they're under a spell-thrall; You'll need to act fast."

"But we haven't seen any in ages," Gladio said. Gods, the kid was staring at him. He ducked his head in mortification. "What if they're gone? What if there aren't any left?"

"They're out there," his father said. "And as an Amicitia, it is your duty to find them. Control them. Channel their power for the good of Lucis."

Gladio sighed. The good of Lucis. Other kids didn't have to worry about the war when their parents talked about the family business. They didn't grow up learning how to counter spells, or use shields against fire and ice, or set up elaborate traps that would send a person's magic rocketing around in an infinite loop, locking them in place. Mostly, Gladio was proud of his family, but sometimes, like now, it felt like they were just a bunch of weird hobbyists, talking about the occult in broad daylight while other kids looked at them like they were sprouting horns.

The door jingled, and Gladio looked up in time to see the boy and his father walking across the parking lot. The boy was hugging his t-shirt close, and when Gladio turned, he found that they hadn't even bothered to pack up their food.

He morosely shoved a handful of fries in his mouth. Great. Another kid who thought he was some mage-obsessed freak.

"I wish we could be a normal family for once," Gladio muttered under his breath, as the boy clambered into a rusty car by the gas pumps. Clarus leaned over and ruffled his hair.

"You'll understand one day," he said, and smiled. Behind him, the car peeled out of the lot, tires squealing. "I promise."


	2. Chapter 2

The worst thing about taking the main road to Lestallum was that eventually, everyone was heading in the same direction. It wasn't unusual to see the same van or motorcycle at different hotels and gas stations, or to run into the usual group of laborers who moved from farm to farm during the harvest months. Noct knew most of them by name at this point, having worked with all of them at least once, but he couldn't shake the chill that ran down his spine whenever he saw the same pickup truck two times in a row, or when he caught someone glancing at him and Regis from across the lot.

"There's a festival in town," Regis explained, when Noct climbed into the car with two tins of cheap takeout. He was leaning back in the passenger's seat, reading one of Mom's college textbooks with his feet on the dashboard. "Everyone's going to Lestallum to celebrate the Battle of the Disc."

Noct frowned, passing over his dad's portion. "Still freaks me out," he said. "Maybe we should take the side road to the canyon."

Regis closed the book and pulled out a plastic fork from his armiger. "Don't fret, Noctis," he said. "We'll be well out of the fray by evening. There's a storm coming in a few hours: No one will want to be out in the open then." 

Noct shrugged, digging into his rice. At nineteen, he was starting to understand his dad's paranoia. He'd found his first mage trap at twelve, lodged in a circle near a deposit of natural ice magic. After that, he started to see the sins everywhere, spotting patterns in the dust and marshes, tracking the telltale glitter of metal rods in the rock. He'd been followed through Lestallum at fifteen by two women in military uniforms, growing more frantic and desperate by the second, until he panicked and climbed a ladder to the roof. Regis found him there an hour later, shaking under a wooden awning and dreaming of chains. 

"Don't know how you and Mom did it," Noct said through a mouthful of rice. "What kind of person gives up everything to live out of a car?"

"An extraordinary one," Regis said, in a soft tone. "Your mother would have walked through fire to stay at our side."

_But it was staying at our side that killed her,_ Noct thought. A promising graduate from Insomnia, Aulea had given up her old life to move in with a man she met at a trailer park at the edge of town, earning herself exile from her upper-class family. She'd lived with Regis for two years, selling the trailer for a new car, moving from town to town, washing their clothes in rivers and reading to each other by the light of Regis' magic.

Then Noct was born two months early, and by the time Regis could drive them both to the hospital, it was too late to save her.

Noct picked up the book at his father's side. "A Treatise on the Stars," he said, and smiled. It was his dad's favorite, filled with clever little notes Mom had written in the margins when she was just Noct's age. He flipped it open and ran a hand over a dog-eared page.

"She would have loved you," Regis said.

Noct blinked hard and looked away. "Yeah," he said, turning back to his rice. "Yeah, I know."

They parked under a stoplight by the Slough that afternoon, just as storm clouds began to build over the Disc. It was a good night for magic: With lightning flickering in the sky and reflecting off the waters of the marsh, nobody would look twice at an extra flash of light. Noct had learned most of his spells in the pouring rain, his father shouting instructions over the boom and crack of thunder, and storms always made his fingers itch.

"If you insist," Regis said, before Noct could sit up to ask. "But please, stay near the car."

"Will do," Noct said, and slipped out of the driver's seat. Rain was already falling, great curtains of it casting the world in grey and green, and Noct's boots squelched in the mud as he headed down the steep slope to a patch of underbrush. 

Lightning struck a tree further up the hill, and Noct grinned. Perfect.

He wondered what his ancestors had done, those first terrible years after they'd fled from their captors. Regis said that the first of them never found a way to unlock their chains, which meant their kids probably had to learn magic on their own. Did they ever go out in thunderstorms and draw lightning from their hands? 

Magic pooled in Noct's fingers, breaking free in branching forks of violet light. He swept his hand in a half circle, shifting his left foot forward and pivoting his body in a sort of dance, trailing lightning. Maybe there'd been music to this, once, but whatever it was, Regis only knew the patterns. Noct dragged his other hand through the light, forming a bolt of pure lightning, which struck the earth at his feet just as thunder shook the air around him, making the damp leaves tremble.

"Shit!"

He stopped, clasping his hands together. Lightning split the night sky, and Noct heard a low roar under the thunder, followed by a muffled curse.

"Backup!" called a low voice, pleading and broken. "I need backup! I--fuck, it's broken, fuck, fuck--"

There was another growl, softer this time, and the rustle of branches. Noct blinked rain from his eyes. _Don't respond,_ his father's voice said, in the back of his mind. _Never respond to a cry for help._

A sickening crack broke the silence between thunderclaps, and Noct heard gasping, the slide of a body through mud.

He cursed and strode into the dark. 

He found the daemon about thirty yards away, an enormous spider with a woman's body where the head should be, blood dripping from a gash in their side. They were skittering towards a man crouched in the mud, who was wearing a light on his chest that did little to cut through the rain. Noct scrambled over to him and placed a hand on his arm, making him slip another few inches in the slick grass.

"It'll take you out," the man grunted, trying to pull away. "Don't be an idiot."

"It'll be okay," Noct said. He stood. "And I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" the man asked, but Noct was already bracing himself, falling back a step. He kicked the man in the back of the head, sending him tipping over into the mud with a cut-off groan, and turned to face the daemon.

"Right," he said, and stood in front of the fallen man, spreading his hand in a circle. The daemon was upon him in seconds, blood hissing as it struck the earth, legs slipping and scrabbling. But Noct held pure lightning in his hands, and all he had to do was press his palms to the joining of the human belly and the spider's flesh, letting the bolt sink into the daemon's skin. 

The daemon collapsed, convulsing as Noct's magic tore into it from the inside out. Light spilled from its open mouth, fingers of lightning scorching its face, and Noct fell back as it started to sink into the muck, breaking down into fragments of lumpy, sodden ash.

"Holy shit." Noct turned, and found the man behind him was lifting himself onto his elbows, his chest coated with mud. "The fuck did you do?"

"Nothing," Noct said. "The dumbass walked right into a lightning strike."

"You're kidding." The man grunted as he got to his knees, holding the back of his head. His free hand fished down the front of his shirt, and Noct saw the suggestion of a tattoo on his arm, the curl of dark feathers. 

"Look, I was on the road when I saw you," Noct said. "I gotta go. You sure you..." Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the small hillside, and Noctis froze.

A few feet away, glittering in the light of the brilliant sky, was a long metal rod jammed into the mud.

Noct forced himself to look to the right. There, thirty feet away, was another glimmer. Then another, and another, spread so far that no one who saw them could determine their pattern, not unless they were standing directly in the center.

It was the largest mage trap Noct had ever seen. 

"You were the bait," Noct whispered, and the man kneeling before him smiled, lifting up a small silver whistle to his lips.

"Got you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Noct didn't wait for the high, shrill note of the whistle to ring through the air. Instead, he pulled a coin out of his pocket and threw it over the man's shoulder, flinging himself full-force into a warp.

At the same time, the mage-hunter's whistle echoed in the faint humming of the mage trap, nine metal rods vibrating in place. Noct felt the trap close over him, dozens of grasping hands tugging him in opposite directions, yanking him out of his warp. He cried out as he was thrown back, his magic draining out of him in thick, tight ropes that pulled him inexorably to the center of the trap, dragging him over the grass. His hands dug grooves in the earth, his nails split, his fingers bled, his worn boots slipped off as he thrashed in the dark. And before him, walking with a slow, terrible purpose, came the hunter.

"Hunters!" Noct shouted, his voice hoarse. "Hunters by the Slough!"

"If you're calling for the other guy, don't bother," the hunter said, swinging a leather bag off his back. He had a sword in his left hand, probably a backup in case the trap failed, and he thrust it into the earth so he could dig in the bag. "I know where you parked. You'll be together soon."

"You touch him," Noct said, jerking to his knees, "and I'll turn you into a fucking--"

"No, you won't," the man said. He pulled out a thick black strap, leather on one side, metal on the other. The metal was etched with runes Noct had memorized as a child; Runes for binding, for stasis. Noct tucked his chin, but the man gripped his jaw in a firm hand and pulled it up again. 

"Don't," Noct said. The leather was warm on his skin. "Please."

"You've run from your responsibilities long enough," the man said. Responsibilities? Since when was this a duty? The collar latched shut, and Noct's magic fell from him at last, releasing him from the trap's hold in time to leave him limp and dazed in the hunter's arms.

"Shit," the man whispered. "Was that supposed to happen?"

Then, with that strange, inane question, the humming of the trap fell silent. The man dropped Noct, reaching for his sword, and turned his flashlight into the gloom. Noct struggled to rise on his elbows, and barely saw more than a dark blur before his father was there, straight-shouldered and tense with fury, bringing his sword down on the retreating hunter.

Blood poured down the hunter's face, mingling with the rain in a clean line down his cheek, and he brought his sword up just in time to block Regis' second blow. He was a good fighter, Noct could tell, maybe even better than Noct, but Regis was a monster with the sword. He moved with force, putting such strength behind each step that the ground should have cracked beneath him, a relentless pursuit that left the hunter no choice but to take up a desperate defense. Regis knew better than to use magic, but he didn't have to. Not with fury giving him an edge to his strikes, not with a cold rage that made his own feet sure while the hunter slipped in the mud, nearly impaling himself on Regis' blade.

There was a flash of metal, and the hunter sank to his knees, curling over a gash in his chest. His hands stained with blood as he tried to cover the wound, and behind him, through the trees, Noct could see the deceptive glow of daemons rising in the dark.

Regis' sword plunged through the man's body one more time, and he fell, gasping wetly, to his hands and knees. 

Noct saw his father's blood-darkened sword for only a moment before it was banished to his armiger, but it was enough.

Regis strode to Noct, reaching down to haul him to his feet. Noct leaned on him, legs weak, head swimming, and squinted at the bobbing lights in the distance. "Daemons," he said, in a voice like the croak of a crow. 

"Leave them," Regis said. "They'll find easier prey."

Noct looked to the hunter, who gazed up at him with eyes made hazy with pain. "Can't let him...he'll die."

"We can," Regis said, "and gods willing, he will." He pulled Noct forward, staggering under his weight, and bore him through the rain towards the light of the street. They passed one of the rods from the trap, which had been knocked to its side, breaking the circle, and Noct wrapped an arm around his father's waist. He swallowed against the collar, and felt the uncomfortable heat of tears on his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Dad," he said. His breath hitched, the fear rolling over him like a wave, catching in his throat. "He knows our faces."

"Not for long," Regis said, tightening his hold on Noct's shoulder. "Not for long."

 

\---

 

It took a team of doctors and more transfusions than Gladio wanted to admit for him to recover enough to leave the hospital. He lay in the comfort of his childhood bedroom, staring up at the ceiling while monitors beeped and fluids dripped from bags at his side. He'd been found a few hours after the fight, half dead and bleeding out at the edge of an outpost, his supplies abandoned, sword lost somewhere in the daemon-infested woods. A stranger at the outpost kept him from dying long enough for an emergency truck to arrive from the city, where Gladio’s father appeared in his work uniform, face tight with worry, clutching Gladio's hand in a grip he couldn't feel.

"Who did this to you?" he'd asked, like he already knew. Not what. Who.

Gladio listened to the gentle thrum of his monitors, and thought of the mage. The younger one, with the delicate chin and fear in his eyes, barefoot and collared in the middle of a broken mage trap.

_He'll die._

Gladio knew better than most that the Amicitias, the ancient line of mage-handlers from the dawn of Lucis, were not always merciful. They used to use mages like expendable batteries of magic, letting them use up their power, drain their life force in battle, and die on the field, leaving another to take their place. The Caelums were... bred, almost, for short, powerful lives. Then the spell chains were made, and they could live longer, not fall under the thrall of their own magic as quickly, make their own decisions to turn the tide of the war. They were given a place to live, safety from an empire that would slaughter them in droves, and allowed to have their own rituals and family units. It wasn't ideal, but it... It worked. 

Hadn't it?

Gladio remembered the cold, terrible fury in the older mage's face as he ran Gladio through, and closed his eyes. 

It didn't matter. In the end, he'd given his father their license plate number. He knew what they looked like, the people they seemed familiar with, the tight, fierce bond they shared. It wouldn't be long before they were found.

 _Don't,_ the mage said, his voice echoing perversely in Gladio's mind. _Please._

Gladio covered his face with a shaking hand, and felt the fine gauze covering the fresh scar down his cheek.

"It's for the good of Lucis," he told the empty room, but there was a question in his tone, an uncertainty that no one—save, perhaps, for a young mage who would look back into the eyes of a dying man, abandoned to the dark—could possibly answer.

 

\---

 

The collar was a problem.

Noct was slowly getting used to the hollow, empty pit he found every time he tried to dip into his magic, but the collar did more than just throw him in stasis. He hardly slept. He had no energy; He spent the first day lying on his side in the backseat of the car, too nauseous to keep anything down. The ground seemed to tilt and sway like a rolling sea when he walked, and he had to hold his father's arm just to get out of the car. Neither of them could so much as touch the clasp without falling violently ill, and no attempt to tear it off had worked so far.

"Maybe our ancestors were used to this," Noct said, as Regis twisted a scarf around his neck. 

"Or their captors wanted them helpless," Regis said. Noct frowned and tugged at the leather under his scarf, sweat rolling down his back.

They both gazed at their car for a minute, parked on the edge of the bridge.

Noct's mother gave birth to him in that car. His dad heated formula in his hands at the wheel, read him bedside stories, let him sit on the hood while they made pictures of the stars. They'd pushed it through miles of empty highways and dirt roads in search of a gas station, rolled up the windows and whispered ghost stories when it rained, watched snow drift in fat flakes at the border. Noct tracked sand from the beaches on the worn floor, took dishcloth baths out of plastic cups on hot days, and lined interesting flowers in the fold-out mirrors. He knew the feel of every dent and crack, every inch of the seats that lost their shape over the years.

Regis placed his hands on the bumper. Noct stood beside him, laying one hand over his, the other braced on the back window.

"Okay," he said, and they pushed off, feet twisting on the asphalt.

The car crashed to the rocks below, just a mangled, smoking mess of metal and plastic, glass spilling around it in a jagged halo. Fire spread in the engine, lapping at the dashboard, melting the faded black paint.

If Noct didn’t speak, after, turning his face away from the sun, his father didn't mention it.

They hitched a ride to Hammerhead on the back of a delivery truck, sitting between crates of greens and fresh onions. Noct drifted in and out of awareness for most of the ride, coming to only when Regis helped him out of the truck, gripping his elbow tight. Noct blinked up at the Hammerhead billboard and swayed on his feet.

"Reggie." Cid was already up, hobbling over with his cap pressed low to his eyes. "Ain't good for y'all to be here. Some boys been askin' questions. Military, by the look of it. And the hell's wrong with you?" He peered in Noct's face, eyes narrowing, and Noct struggled to focus.

"We need your help, old friend," Regis said. He tugged at Noct's scarf, and Cid stepped back, his lips pinched tight. "I need it off him. You're the only man I can trust."

Cid sucked at a cheek and looked around, oddly furtive. "Alright. But y'all gotta move out fast, after this." He waved them on, and Noct stumbled after them, trying to hold down the bile that burned in his throat with every step. 

He was led to the back of the garage, where he lay facedown on a table, eyes closed, listening to Cid talk above him.

"Pay attention, Reggie, 'cause you need to know how to do this. Don't know what it does to you, seein' as I'm not some kinda freak o' nature, but this is plain ol' iron. Take the pliers here--Shit. Okay, hold em in a shirt, then. Get somethin' between you and the metal. And the clasp... Right here..."

Noct winced as the collar tightened just a fraction. Then there was a click that he felt rather than heard, and the collar was slithering off, yanked to the floor.

"Noctis?" His dad was holding him, running a hand over his forehead. "Noctis, how do you feel?"

"Like shit," Noct mumbled, and slowly sat up. "But... Better, I think." He could feel his magic rushing back, sinking into his skin. He shook out his hand, calling fire to his palm, and smiled when flame licked over his fingers.

"Good for you," Cid said, and Noct clenched his fist. "Now both of you need to get. Anyone asks, I ain't seen you."

"Thank you," Regis said, taking Cid's shoulder. "I--"

"I said get," Cid muttered, and turned away, stomping off towards the door. Regis smiled ruefully and stepped back.

"We should go," he said.

Noct slipped to the floor. "Where, though?"

"Somewhere safe," Regis said. "There's... A man, by Galdin, who may be able to help us." He pointed Noct to the back door, tucked behind a row of crates.

"Can we trust him?" Noct asked.

"With our lives, at least," Regis said. "He isn't--" he stopped, a hand on the door, as Cid's voice rose outside.

"The hell I tell y'all about comin' round my garage?" Cid shouted, over the boom and groan of the garage door being lifted. Noct saw the silhouette of three pairs of feet before his father yanked on his arm, pulling him out the back door.

They ran behind a row of propane tanks, followed by the sound of chaos unfolding in the garage.

"Blast this empty space," Regis hissed. "We'll have to use a cloaking spell. Can you manage it?"

"Sure," Noct lied. Cloaking spells and magical walls were his father's specialty, but Noct's only lasted a few seconds at most. Maybe if he treated it like a warp, and renewed the spell every few feet... He nodded and made a fist in his palm, spreading the spell over his skin like water trickling down a wall. Regis disappeared entirely, with none of the wavering mirage-shape Noct left behind.

"Follow my footsteps," Regis whispered, and took off, kicking up dust. Noct followed him, cracking another spell after a few feet, too aware of his magic slowly draining with each attempt.

The garage door slammed open. An invisible hand took his wrist--damn, his spell must have looked worse than he thought--and they raced towards a rocky outcropping, the only cover in a half mile radius. 

"I see one!" someone shouted, a man's voice, low and commanding. "Cor, take the left flank! Monica, spell nets!"

"No," Regis said.

"It's alright," Noct panted. "We're gaining."

Before them, a long strip of netting rose from the earth, sending ribbons of red dust streaming in their eyes. A woman stood on one end, a man at the other, shuffling to position the nets in their path.

"They're herding us," Noct said, noting the way the woman moved. "They want us to go left."

"Then we go right," Regis said. "Warp, Noctis."

Noct tossed a stone, warping after it with a dazzling flash of magic. Someone shouted--His illusion was stripped from him as soon as he fell into the warp--but he only threw the stone again. His father was a few feet ahead, skirting the edge of the spell net, and Noct could see the lip of a cliff beyond, a place the hunters couldn't easily follow. Yes. Almost there. They were almost there. One more warp, and they'd have a minute or more, just enough time to run--

At his side, Regis went down with a strangled shout. The stone fell from Noct's fingers, clattering to his feet, as his father struggled to disentangle himself from a piece of netting wrapped around his legs. Noct lunged for him, and Regis twisted away.

"Don't touch it!" His face was contorted in pain, fingers pink where they clawed at the rope. "Run."

"I'd advise against that," said the man with the low voice, strolling towards them through the dying sagebrush. His face was vaguely familiar, his head was bald, his shoulders impossibly broad. He held a sword in his hand, long and dangerously sharp, gleaming like ice in the midday sun.

Noct summoned his own sword, letting it drop into his hand as he rose, placing himself before his father. The man's subordinates flanked them, inching closer, and Noct called ice to his free hand, frost crawling across his knuckles.

"Good afternoon," the leader of the hunters said, looking past Noct to where Regis lay in the dust, wrenching at his bonds. "My name is Clarus Amicitia. You must be the man who tried to kill my son."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning: It'll get worse before it gets better.

Noct stepped over his father, eyeing the hunters approaching on each side. The man—Cor, he’d been called—had a wire in his hands, weighed down by a dozen metal balls, while the woman, Monica, had another leather and metal collar in her hand. Noct’s heartbeat pounded in his ears, and his palm stuck to the hilt of his sword, clammy with sweat. 

“He lived?” Regis’ voice trailed into a disinterested drawl, and he laid a hand on the back of Noct’s leg, steadying him. “What a shame. The world can sorely use one less slaver.”

Clarus’ face darkened. “Dad?” Noct said, his voice unnaturally high. “Not the time.”

“No, it isn’t,” Clarus said. “We’re willing to compromise. This isn’t the third century anymore.”

Regis barked out a laugh. “And how old are your slave collars?” he asked. 

Clarus opened his mouth to speak, and a gunshot rang over the vast desert, echoing off the cliffs behind them as dust billowed at Clarus’ feet. Noct turned with the others to find a familiar cap ducking down behind the propane tanks, and clenched his hand on his sword. Cid. He strained to hear the distinctive clack of a shotgun being loaded, and failed to notice the sudden movement at his side. Regis sat up, forcefully twisting Noct around, and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. 

“ _Run,”_ he said, and, with all the strength in his wiry limbs, pushed Noct face-first off the cliff below. 

Noct heard a frantic shout above him, but he didn’t have time to look. He flung his sword to the ground and warped after it, falling heavily on a damp patch of stone. He rolled to his back in time to see Monica holding his father by the arms, Cor with a hand at his neck, Clarus peering down at him in abject horror. 

_Run._

He had to get to Galdin. 

Monica lifted the collar to Regis’ neck. The metal strips flared with sunlight, bright as the panels of a magical wall. 

There was someone waiting for them there. Someone who could help.

Regis was pushed forward, a foot on his back to keep him from struggling. 

He could carry on the line. Go to Altissia, find a new name, a new life. Keep the Caelum magic out of enemy hands. 

He thought of his father, driving through the night with a dying wife in the back of his car, their newborn son in her arms. 

His sword struck the rock at Clarus’ feet. 

The world erupted in a spray of magic as Noct warped to the hilt of his sword, wrenched it loose, and warped again. This time, he threw his sword at Clarus, and he landed with his blade shoved inches into the hunter’s side, knocking him back with the force of his blow. He warped again. Another flurry of light, a soft, organic sound as his sword sank deep into Monica’s shoulder. Her muscles convulsed around the blade, the collar slipping from her fingers, and it struck Noct, in a distant sort of way, that he’d never wounded another human being before. He pulled his sword free. Blood followed.

Wire wound around Noct’s chest, dragging him back against Cor, and Noct felt his magic fading as the metal balls attached to the wire rolled over his shirt. Noct swung his legs, kicking back at Cor, but it was like kicking a wall—Strong arms held him flush against Cor’s chest, but he grinned fiercely as his father stood, finally free of the spell-net, and raised a hand to Clarus. 

_A wall,_ Noct thought, trying to wrench himself out of Cor’s hold. _Put up a wall._

But no wall came. No light poured from the earth to build panels of pure magic, no ice or fire or lightning dripped from his fingers like paint rolling on a canvas. Regis just stood there, his hand shaking faintly, gaze distant, unseeing. 

His eyes glowed violet. 

“Dad?” Noct felt the magic flow past him, radiating from his father like the swell of a wave, utterly foreign to any type of spell he’d encountered before. The hunters didn’t seem to notice: They only saw the light, rising and fading in Regis’ eyes in a flash before he fell, like a puppet cut loose from its strings, to the dust. “Dad!”

Monica, blood oozing sluggishly down her uniform, knelt at Regis’ side. “Don’t touch him!” Noct shouted. His voice was thin, echoing weakly off the rocks. Monica pressed three fingers to Regis’ neck. 

“He’s alive,” she said. 

“What did he do?” Clarus asked, looking at Noct. “What magic was that?”

“ _Fuck_ you,” Noct spat. 

“Such a charming family,” Clarus said, gesturing to Noct. Cor lowered him to his knees, winding the wire tight around his wrists. Monica rolled Regis to his back, laying out the collar, and Noct tried to lunge forward. He toppled on his side, and Cor knelt to pick him up again, ignoring Noct’s attempts to wriggle free. 

“Does it hurt you?” Monica asked. Her brows were lowered, her lips twisted in pain. 

“What do you fucking think?” Noct asked. Monica didn’t flinch. She just looked at him steadily, patient as stone. 

“This is all we have at the moment,” she said. “We can switch it out for something else at the compound.”

“Go to hell,” Noct said. Cor pulled him to his feet, a firm hand at his neck. “You could’ve left us alone. We could’ve stuck around somewhere, got a house, grown up with—“ He stopped, a knot forming in his throat, at the sight of Clarus lifting his father’s limp body. 

“None of our lives are our own,” Clarus said. “Not so long as the daemons exist.”

“No,” Noct said, and stumbled forward, the wires cutting pink lines into his skin. “It’s never just daemons.”

 

\---

 

Far beyond the desert where Noctis was led, shuffling and cursing, into the back of a grey military van, the wave of Regis’ magic spread outward. It rolled sightless through the trees, over hills that tapered into thin walkways above the winding road, down hills made fragrant with clover. It swept over the beaches of Galdin, past sunbathers and children paddling in the shallows, skimming the surface of the water as it built up speed. It slid up the rocky shore of Angelgard, where it sank feelers into stone, sinking into the fabric of the island itself. It settled at last in the dark tomb at the heart of the island, twining around a simple stone coffin in the center of the cavern.

For a minute, the only sound in the tomb was the hollow roar of the tide. 

Then the lid of the coffin twitched. Stone screamed as the lid jerked back, inch by inch, revealing a sliver of darkness, thin as the twist of a smile. Hands shot out through the dark, grimy fingers gripping the stone, and the coffin lid crashed to the floor with the bang of thunder, cracking to pieces. 

A figure rose in the tomb, opening golden eyes to the dim light drifting through a high window. He lifted a hand to his cheek, and the pink scar tissue around his wrists stood out stark against his filthy sleeves, a perfect match to the ring of raised skin at his neck. 

The first mage of the Caelum line stepped over the ruin of his coffin, tilting his head as though listening to a faint call, a distant summons. 

“Oh, yes,” he said, and smiled, alone in the dark. “Yes, I hear you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can finally say this: Here comes Ardyn to save the day?!?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just imagine that every time Gladio or Clarus feel guilty while not actually doing anything, Regis is standing behind them, sarcastically playing the world's smallest violin.
> 
> (Also, no, no one is gonna get Stockholm syndrome.)

Gladio emerged from his bedroom the next morning to find the house in a state of disordered, unparalleled chaos.

"It's Daddy," Iris said, walking by with a laundry bag of old clothes in her arms. The bag was almost as big as she was, bulging with dark sleeves and wadded-up blankets. "I think he's finally lost it."

"There are _mages_ in the house!" Talcott shouted, running past with an armful of books. Iris gave Gladio a meaningful look and tottered a few more steps with her burden. 

"Not really in the house," she said, and Gladio let out a sigh, some of the tension draining from his shoulders. "Dad's moving them to the workshop. Something went wrong with the cells at the compound, but he isn't saying what. He also," she added, jumping out of Gladio's way, "says you aren't allowed to carry anything until your stitches are out."

"Mother hen," Gladio said, and Iris stuck out her tongue, dragging the bag off to the open living room door.

Gladio followed her, peering into the living and dining rooms as he went. Furniture had been moved, the second television was gone, and one of the rugs had been rolled up and laid on its side. Jared was cooking enough food for an army, which was his usual coping mechanism under pressure, and called Gladio over with a shaking hand.

"Hey, Jared," Gladio said. "What's--"

"Talk to your father," Jared said. He was kneading dough, bowls of stress-induced bread experiments lining the counter. 

"That bad?" Gladio looked to the back yard, where Iris and Talcott were milling around the workshop, moving in furniture. "Why can't the mages stay in the military compound? That's where that one guy stayed when my great-great-grandmother was around, right?"

"I was a child then," Jared said, shoving the dough across the counter. "All I remember are the higher-ups talking about the memorial." Gladio raised his brows, and Jared's mouth twisted. "For the last mage. Somnus. Named after one of their ancestors. This had to be at least two hundred years ago, but... He took his own life on the battlefield."

Gladio watched the dough take shape under Jared's hands. "You know why?"

Jared frowned. "Your father might, now. Go talk to him. He's in the study with our best brandy."

Gladio opened the study door carefully, blinking in the dim light of a single desk lamp. His father sat in his high-backed leather chair, looking up at the awards and medals lining the wall, a history of the Amicitia lineage laid out like a tapestry in brass. 

"Did you know," Clarus said, in a soft voice, "that if you put an activated mage collar in a reinforced anti-magic cell, the two will be drawn together like a magnet?" 

The amber liquid in his glass sloshed along the side as he set it down. 

"It's damn hard, you know, trying to take a mage collar off a man who is choking to death."

Gladio held his breath. "He isn't--"

"He's fine," Clarus said. He grimaced. "He's alive. It will be my lucky task to tell him, when he's aware enough not to be sick all over himself, that he and his son have been drafted into the army from birth."

Gladio intercepted the decanter before his father could refill the glass. "We knew our measures were old," he said. "So they'll need to be tweaked. We can work with them, this time."

Clarus didn't answer. "When are they moving in?"

"At sixteen-hundred. The younger one. Noctis." Clarus knocked back the last of his drink. "He offered to heal Monica."

"They can heal?"

"Apparently so." Clarus looked back to the rows of medals, his face shadowed. "I ask that you keep Talcott and Iris from bothering them. See them settled in."

"Sure," Gladio said. He hesitated, a hand on the desk. "Dad. I know it isn't... What we expected. I..."

"Go on, son," his father said. "I'll join you for dinner tonight."

Gladio left him, sitting alone in an empty study, looking old and worn in the growing dark.

Iris was tasked with keeping Talcott busy while the mages were moved into the workshop that afternoon, but Gladio could still see their faces peering out of the upstairs windows as the transport van arrived. Two Crownsguard soldiers from his dad's troops brought the mages in, hands twisted up in spell nets, looking up at the Amicitia manor as they were led to their new quarters. Gladio had to force himself not to wince when Regis, the older one, walked by, but couldn't stop his hand from touching the new scar on his cheek.

"Don't use the collars," one of the soldiers said, passing Gladio a piece of spell net. "The nets burn them if their skin's exposed, but they don't make them sick, so it's the best option if you have to transport them. The older one's having a bad reaction to, uh. To the collar. Can't keep anything down, even with it off."

"I'll call a doctor if it continues," Gladio said. "Thank you."

The soldier looked to the workshop, rubbing the back of their neck. "Yeah. I mean. Yes sir. We'd better head back."

Gladio twisted the spell net in his hands, feeling the thin metal fibers mixed in with the hemp. He took a breath and knocked on the door.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" 

Gladio unlocked the door. Noctis was crouching in the back of the room, where the small washroom was, holding a cloth to his father's forehead. He stood when Gladio entered, and looked him up and down, gaze lingering on the bulky bandages under his shirt.

"Let me guess," he said, in an acerbic tone. " _Got you._ "

Gladio remained where he was. "How's the room responding to you?" he asked. "It's not as strong as the cells in the compound, I know that much, but--"

"I'm in a constant state of stasis now," Noctis said. "So yeah. What do you want?"

"Jared's making enough food for an army," Gladio said. "You don't have any allergies?"

"No, but Dad's puking his guts out every five minutes, so there's that."

"Noctis." Regis sounded hoarse, his voice strained. "Don't waste your breath."

"And what's this about?" Noctis asked, sweeping an arm towards the room. "First you choke us, then you put us up in some kind of, of fancy prison hotel, like I'm supposed to go, Oh look, a real bed! and agree to kill people for you?"

" _Noctis._ "

"And who the fuck is Jared?"

"He's our." Gladio swallowed. The furniture in the room was all second-rate, old pieces that wouldn't be missed. Hardly top quality by any stretch of the imagination. "Our butler."

"They have a butler," Noctis said, flinging his hands in the air. " _We_ learn magic in caves, and they have a butler."

Gladio found, to his dismay, that he was almost backed up to the door. "I'll be back in an hour with dinner," he said, reaching for the handle.

Noctis rolled his eyes, turning back to his father. "I know it's hard to believe, but we'll be here."

 

\---

 

Dino Ghiranze was the first to spot him. The sometime journalist was having a smoke behind the docks of the Mother of Pearl when he heard a slosh of water that didn't sound like the usual shushing of the tide. He looked up in time to see a tall, barrel-chested man climb out of the ocean, stepping barefoot onto the dock with a shake of his dark red hair. The cigarette dropped out of Dino's mouth and went rolling into a crack in the boards as the man approached, dripping salt water, sodden rags barely clinging to his chest and hips. He stopped, casting a dark shadow over Dino, and flashed a charming smile.

"Excuse me," he said, in an accent Dino couldn't quite place. "Can you tell me what this place is called, now?"

"The dock?" Dino quavered. "It's, uh, we're in. Galdin?"

"Ah. We used to call it the Golden Key, back in the day. How quaint." He turned from Dino, ascending the steps to the Mother of Pearl, and Dino frantically fumbled for another cigarette.

Above him, Ardyn Caelum stopped a man at one of the circular booths and tapped him on the shoulder.

"That's a lovely shirt you have," he said, tilting his neck so that the scars at his collar twisted in the light. "I do believe you'll give it to me."

"The hell?" the man said. Ardyn snapped his fingers. The world shifted around them, color draining from their surroundings into a faint, faraway blue, and when Ardyn snapped his fingers again, the man was shirtless, deathly pale, and crouched against the far side of the booth. Ardyn buttoned up the shirt collar and lifted a glass of wine off the table in a silent toast. Then he walked on, draining the glass with every sign of enjoyment before setting it down on the counter where the chef stood, staring at him in silent shock.

He waved a hand at her and kept going, stopping only when he passed an older man fishing off the side of the dock.

"Oh, yes," he said, eyeing the man's broad, flower-patterned jacket. He took the man by the shoulder, and when he turned him around, Ardyn's face was starting to sink into shadow, blackness seeping from his eyes. "That," he added, with his faint, unwavering smirk, "is precisely my style."

 

\---

 

"I miss the armiger," Noct said, voice muffled from within the tent-like folds of a truly enormous plaid shirt. He was swimming in sweatpants too long for his legs, barefoot on the rug laid out over the cold stone floor. "I'd kill for a shirt that fits. Maybe that's what they're going for? Condition us into hardass killers with shitty hand-me-downs?"

"A fine attempt," Regis drawled, flipping through one of the books on the dresser. "But poor taste, Noctis."

Noct tried for a smile. Judging by the pained look in his father's eyes, it hadn't worked. "We'll find a way out, Dad. They're already fucked up about it."

"Yes, remarkable what happens when you discover that actions have consequences," Regis said. He raised a hand to massage his bruised throat. "They can't afford to let us go. Eventually, their need for power will outweigh their guilty conscience."

The guilt was obvious enough. Gladiolus Amicitia--Gladio, he called himself--had shown up with a dinner he probably ordered from a five star restaurant in the city, unless his butler was some kind of mage in the kitchen. Regis actually kept some of it down, and the relief in Gladio's eyes had been... strange. Like he'd been waiting for them to faint, or explode. 

"They don't really know anything about us, do they?" Noct asked.

Regis actually laughed at that. "When have they ever?"

Noct sat on the edge of their new bed, which creaked distressingly under his weight, and looked down at his hands. They were rough hands, a worker's hands, worn with the sun and motor oil and hard-won callouses. He'd hauled potatoes and greens with them, mucked out chocobo stalls, did roadside repairs, and unloaded trucks and warehouses. He'd coaxed magic into dollar-store soda cans and energy drinks, making potions that could heal sunburns and close wounds. He knew the touch of magic on his fingers as well as he knew the feel of water, of air. 

He thought of the armies of Niflheim, patrolling the border in their sharp grey and white uniforms. A collar at his neck. Blood at his feet.

"Dad," Noct said.

"Yes?"

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

There was a long silence. Somewhere beyond their prison walls, Gladio and Clarus were probably sitting down to dinner with their own family, in a mansion that held the trappings of their legacy.

"Yes," Regis said, at last. "When I had to."

Noct waited, watching him carefully. His father set down the book. "It was a soldier from Niflheim. I was freer, then, with my magic. Your mother loved the shapes I could make in the fire, and I... became a little carried away. Word got back to the garrison near Lestallum. Your mother was five months pregnant with you at the time."

Noct clenched his hands.

"It was over quickly enough," Regis said. "I did miss shaping the fire, though."

Noct remembered the way his father had thrust his sword into the young Amicitia's body. The blood pouring from Monica's wound. "Did it get easier?" he asked. "The thought of. Of killing, after that?"

Outside, someone laughed; A girl's voice, high and carefree, singing through the warm evening air. 

"No." Regis said. "No, it never does."

 

\---

 

Ardyn Lucis Caelum stood just outside the border of a crude mage trap nestled in the hills of Galdin. His new boots were a little tight, and he wasn't sure about the pattern on his pants, but the hunter approaching him on his left was far more interesting.

"A beautiful evening, is it not?" Ardyn asked. The hunters surrounding him hesitated, hands at their weapons. Rather crude of them, all things considered. They couldn't possibly have been from the main branch of hunters; An offshoot, maybe, or opportunists taking a shot in the dark.

"I'm so glad to have found you," Ardyn said. "You see, I am what you would call... a mage on the loose. Which, as you know, is a terrible thing to be in this day and age. I _insist_ that you take me into your custody immediately."

The hunter before him stopped, narrowing his eyes.

"Wh--"

It dawned on Ardyn a moment later, when he was sifting through the charred corpses on the hill, that he should have at least waited long enough to ask for directions. He yanked fine leather boots off one of the smoking bodies and gingerly tried them on.

"Perfect," he said, beaming up at the bright, glimmering patchwork of stars. Directions could be taken from the next unfortunate soul on the way, but it would do no one any good if he came to a Caelum family reunion underdressed.


	6. Chapter 6

Government officials arrived early the next day, scuttling out of their beetle-black cars in suits pinched tight at the waist, clutching notepads and briefcases. Noct watched them from where he sat in a ring of metal wire, catching snatches of excitable chatter as fold-out chairs were propped up on the lawn.

"Two at once," a man in a military uniform said. "Gods, man, that would have been enough to turn the tide in Galahd."

"Rather skinny, though, isn't he?" asked a woman in a severe bun. Her companion clicked her teeth.

"I heard they all are. Something in the blood. Is he safe? You hear stories, you know."

"We're trying," Gladio said, and the women glanced at him, brows raised. "But it looks like our equipment's too strong. We'll have to build everything from scratch. It's why we aren't including Regis in this, he's still--"

"Oh." The woman in the bun shifted. "Yes. But. Are _we_ safe?"

For a moment, Gladio seemed at a loss for words. He touched his cheek, where a fresh scar split his eyebrow in two and made a clean line down his cheekbone. 

"Sure," he said.

The man in the military uniform seemed to want to make a speech, but Clarus stopped him, giving Noct a wary look. "We'll be conducting a small test of your skills," he told Noct for the second time that morning. "A simple assessment."

Noct sat back, drawing up his knees, and crossed his arms. 

"Perhaps we can start with fire," Clarus said. His gaze flicked to the workshop, where Regis paced by the window, and Noct stiffened. 

He sat before a small crowd of military officials and government workers, a caged animal on display, and looked into their faces, one by one. None of them really cared for magic, not for the kind Noct and Regis used, not for the patterns, the slow breathing, the careful twist of a hand through a river of raw power. They didn't know the scent of ozone in the wake of a spell, the charged air during a lightning storm, the touch of frost on a summer day. He looked up, and saw a twitch of a curtain on the second floor. A small face peered out from a high window; A boy, maybe eight years old, nose pressed to the glass.

Noct smiled. The boy waved.

"I learned this from my dad," Noct said, in a low voice that failed to carry over the crowded yard. A few onlookers leaned forward, scowling. "He learned it from his grandmother."

Noct held his hands before his mouth and pretended to blow into them, the way he did with his dad on nights when fire daemons bobbed in the dark. He withdrew his hands, and a perfect sphere of fire rose from them, spiraling slowly into the air. Noct pretended to blow out another, then another, and sent them wheeling around each other, forming a spiral just high enough for the boy in the upstairs window to see. The boy clapped his hands to his mouth, and Noct winked. The balls of fire collapsed on themselves without enough magic to sustain them, and Noct stood to a small, awkward smattering of applause. 

"This one's fun," he said, and clapped his hands. A flurry of frost burst around him from the ice spell crushed in his palms, spreading out like the drooping fireworks he and his dad used to watch on the beach at Galdin. The boy disappeared from the window, and Noct heard a chorus of voices, frantic shouts, the hammer of feet pounding down the stairs.

The back door slammed open, revealing a young boy in a button-up shirt and a red face, grinning despite the efforts of the teenaged girl trying to drag him back.

"You made it _snow!_ " he shouted, into the silence of over a dozen scandalized government employees. He struggled to the doorstep, gripping the frame. "Was it real? Can I touch it? Can you do it again?"

 

"It seems as though you've made a friend," Regis said a few hours later, chin propped on his hand. Noct was changing in the small washroom, twisting his borrowed shirt into a knot and trying to ignore the roll of nausea in his gut. He couldn't get the critical stares of the audience out of his mind, the pencils scribbling away, phone cameras flashing. 

"And about a dozen enemies," he said. The government onlookers had been less than pleased with his display. You couldn't kill a daemon, they said, by freezing it to death. An army couldn't be stopped with fairy lights. One insisted on bringing out a collar and lead, but Clarus had stopped him before _that_ could go any farther.

The boy from the window, an eight-year-old named Talcott with wild hair and a remarkable lack of self preservation, had to be forcibly held back from the circle. Gladio's sister caught him before he could fling himself inside, but he stayed a good two feet away, asking questions while a spell net was wrapped around Noct's wrists. How much snow could he make? Did he know any other shapes for the fire? Could he conjure doves? The magician at his sixth birthday had three whole doves in his sleeve, where did Noct keep his?

"Can you imagine keeping doves in the armiger?" Noct said, falling back on the bed with a groan. His father's lips thinned.

"Yes. I can."

Noct rolled over. "I was seven, dad. It was _one_ cat."

Which had appeared, hissing and yowling in primordial rage, along with a comb and a can of dry shampoo into Regis' hand the next morning. It was not, in either of their opinions, their shining moment as a family. 

"No doves," Regis said. 

"You know." Noct slowly kicked off his shoes, letting them thump on the rug. "You don't seem really concerned about any of this."

Regis said nothing, but Noct knew the difference between ordinary silence and the one that hung heavy in the room, filling the air like smoke. "Dad. What did you do, back at Hammerhead? I never--"

"A gamble," his father said, shortly. "A risky one. Nothing will come of it."

"What was it for?" Noct asked. Regis raised his eyebrows and glanced up, and Noct spotted the bright, glittering lens of a security camera over the window.

"Nothing of consequence," Regis said, and stood, a hand on his throat. "Now. Tell me the names of the officials you saw. We'll need to know who to avoid in the future."

 

\---

 

Talcott Hester was eight years old, and he was, for the seventeenth time in the past three years, in utter disgrace. He knew the rules so well now that he could write them out in his sleep: No TV. No video games. No phone. Not that it mattered, really, with a mage in the house.

Talcott couldn't remember a time when he didn't know about mages. He'd moved in with the Amicitias when his parents died, which Grandpa Jared said was a _troubling time,_ but Talcott remembered only as a grey, in-between sort of feeling, full of waiting and suit fittings and fear. But Uncle Clarus had told him he was family, and when the strangeness and openness of the house seemed to stretch around him, drowning him, Gladio and Iris were always there with a new book or a game.

But then there was the other side of the Amicitia family, the one Talcott didn't belong to. It lay in the workshop full of metal and wire, in books of instructions on "compulsion" and "control," in week-long camping trips and hoarse whispers at night. Talcott learned to dread the thought of magic, of people who could spray fire from their hands and break apart tanks and armored cars with spears of ice. 

But Noctis wasn't like that. His magic was small, beautiful, like the magic wizards used in picture books and cartoons. He'd made it snow in the middle of the day. If he was what mages really were, Talcott could understand why the Amicitias spent so much time looking for them.

Talcott slowly crept out of his bedroom, careful not to open his door wide enough to make a sound. It was past midnight already, and Grandpa Jared had stopped clattering around in the kitchen, so he had a pretty good chance of making it to the workshop without anyone noticing. 

The first floor of the Amicitia manor was washed in moonlight, which streamed in great bars over plush couches and cluttered coffee tables. Talcott's bare toes skidded on a damp spot at the foot of the stairs, and he looked up into the golden eyes of a tall, dark-haired man standing in the living room.

There was something on the floor at his feet.

"Ah," the man said. "Another one."

"You." Talcott laid a hand on the wall. There was something on the floor. "You aren't supposed to."

"You wouldn't," the man said, bending down with a smile, "be one of them?"

"One of what?" Talcott asked. He kept his gaze on the man's face. He wouldn't look down. Something terrible would happen if he looked down. Talcott lifted his foot to the first step of the stair, and felt the sticky wetness follow him, trailing onto the carpet.

"A hunter," the man said. He examined Talcott's face and sighed. "Of mages. An Amicitia."

"Oh, I don't..." _There was something on the floor._ "I don't hunt anybody."

"That makes one of us," the man said. He laughed, but it wasn't exactly _kind_ , not like Uncle Clarus', or Grandpa--or Grandpa Jared's. It had teeth to it. 

The thing on the floor didn't _have_ teeth anymore.

"Well, I suppose I've tarried long enough," the man said, stepping over the. Stepping over the boards leading to the yard. "You may go."

In the yard beyond, the small light of the workshop flickered against the reinforced metal panels. Talcott grabbed the wall with both hands, digging lines into the paint.

"Don't hurt them," he said, in a short, hoarse voice. The man turned to him again, his smile wide and wicked as a blade, his boots dark with blood.

"Oh, my dear boy," he said. "I wouldn't dream of it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Jared  
> Also, RIP everyone's plans for turning Noct into a war mage.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for talk of physical abuse in this chapter.

Regis Caelum never did care much for his father.

He sat in the back of his family's brand new RV, pinching his nose in blood-slick fingers while the engine hummed and growled its way through Caem. He was sixteen and still growing like a weed, all uncomfortable angles and recurring acne, and it was bad enough to look like the Before photo in a health care ad without adding a broken nose to the mix.

"He didn't mean to be so rough," Regis' mother said, dabbing at his shirt with a damp washcloth. "But you _do_ needle him. The rules exist for a reason."

"No, they exist because he's scared," Regis said. His mother glanced to the front of the RV, where his father was hunched over the steering wheel, a map unfurled on the dashboard. "He's always been scared of magic. He _hates_ it."

"No, no," his mother said. "It isn't that."

Regis stared at her from a face made tacky with blood. "What if someone attacks me?" he asked. "What if I'm caught?"

His mother hesitated, lips parted. She wasn't a mage, not like Regis, not like his father. She was the most ordinary, unmagical woman on the planet, which was probably why Regis' father felt drawn to her in the first place. The only person who ever taught _Regis_ a spell was his grandmother, and they buried her only last year, on a hill near the ocean where no hunters could find her.

"I've been reading," Regis' mother said, in a light whisper. Her hands trembled on Regis' shoulders as she turned him around, away from his father's line of sight. "One of your grandmother's diaries. Mors wanted to bury them with her, but I thought, I don't know, you were so close."

Regis didn't want to think about his grandmother. She was dead. There was no magic, none in the world, that could bring her back. None that could get him out of his dad's RV. None that could bring him to a quiet, secret place, where he could let his magic spread out in a brilliant tapestry, a display of power unheard of since the day his ancestors killed their masters and escaped, wreathed in flame, into the wilds. He dreamed of being consumed by it, and woke shaking, unused magic welling up in his hands.

"There's an old spell," his mother whispered, clutching his shoulders tight, "that she said should only be used when you have no other option. It's a summons, she says, like for a god, but inverted."

"What's an inverted god supposed to be?" Regis whispered. 

"She doesn't say." 

Regis could taste blood on his tongue, the grit of fifteen years of life on the road, the ever present sting of magic. He lowered his hand from his broken nose and looked his mother in the eye.

"Teach me."

 

\---

 

Aulea and Regis weren't officially married under the law--Few Caelums were. Their marriage took place in the front seat of a new car, with armfuls of Aulea's clothes and books shoved in the back, the specter of the Caelum RV disappearing behind them in a cloud of dust. Aulea blasted a cassette of classical music on the radio, rolled down the windows, and let her feathery black hair fly free, twisting against the night sky. She laughed, and fear clutched Regis' heart, tight and terrible.

"I'll never love anyone as I love you," he said, his voice carried off by the whistle of the wind. Aulea only smiled and grabbed his hand, steering the car back onto the road.

That night, in a hollow of trees by a dirt road, Regis wove a net of fire. Aulea stepped barefoot over the ropes, her bellbottoms singed and tracking mud, her eyes cold and clear. She danced to the crappy handheld radio Regis had owned since the age of twelve, and for a minute, Regis felt like a priest stumbling upon a goddess in the wood, a commoner watching the first mage draw fire to her hands. He didn't know he was weeping until Aulea was there, holding his face and smiling, smiling, whispering his name and kissing his twice-broken nose.

 

\---

 

"I can't do this," Regis said. He sat on a hotel bed in Lestallum, holding his head in his hands. Aulea leaned against the wall, her old nightgown barely covering the swell of her belly, gazing down at him. "I don't know how."

"No one knows how to be a father," Aulea said.

Regis stared blankly at the wall. "I can't help but wonder if it's genetic. If I'll look at him one day, and whatever love I had will... If I'll see him working magic one day and I'll--"

"Regis." Aulea leaned down and kissed his brow, sweeping back his dark bangs. "Of course you'll love him. You're too vigilant to turn into your father." She kissed him again, a soft, lingering brush on the cheek, and cupped his face in a hand. "And so am I."

 

\---

 

Regis sat in the back seat of his car, wrapped in the sheets he and Aulea had lain in only a month before, and adjusted his son in his arms. Noctis Caelum, born too young and taken from the hospital too soon, clenched small fists and screwed up his red, wrinkled face, already frustrated with his father's attempts with the bottle.

"I know," Regis said. He blinked, and his eyes ached, sore with a day and a night of frequent stops to warm formula and change diapers, to go through the long, complicated ritual of keeping such a small soul alive. "I know, it's hard to be young."

Noctis sobbed once, and Regis held him to his chest, closing his eyes. Outside, behind the daemon lights that chased away the dark, hunters prowled the wilderness, setting up their traps and spell nets. Somewhere past the baking heat of Lestallum, there was a grove where a young woman had danced in fire. Somewhere, there was a place, secret and hidden, where mages could live.

"I will never," Regis whispered, into the vast emptiness of their broken home, "love anyone as I love you."

 

\---

 

Noctis was asleep, curled up in a borrowed bed in the hands of the enemy, his dark hair hanging in his eyes. Regis sighed and tugged the sheets further up Noct's shoulders, eyeing the dark Amicitia home beyond their reinforced window. There was no telling how long it would be before he saw the results of that dreadful moment behind the Hammerhead garage. If anything happened at all. Still, Regis could have sworn he felt something before he fell, a pull at the magic that came so easily to his hands.

Over the years, Regis had given much thought to the nature of an inverted god.

He stood. Noctis stirred in his sleep, screwing his eyes tight against the glow of the bedside lamp. 

"And to think they would make a killer of you," Regis said. That, at least, was one fate Regis had averted for his son. It was too late for him, for the hand that had plunged a blade into the body of someone's son, someone's brother, but Noctis' heart was soft. Regis had taken great pains to keep it that way.

A strangled shout came from the Amicitia home. Then silence, and the groan of a sliding glass door opening. Footsteps, jerky and leaden through the mulch pathway to the workshop, and the scrape of a key in the lock.

The door swung open to reveal Gladiolus, the man who collared Regis' son, standing stock still, sweat beading on his forehead and rolling down his neck. His face glowed red with the light of a rope of fire, which curled in a perfect circle mere inches from his throat.

Regis looked past him, into deep gold eyes and a mirthless smile.

"Dear nephew," said the devil, inclining his head in the slightest of bows. "What a pleasure it is to see you at last."


	8. Chapter 8

Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the first of Noct's family line and sometime killer of old men, tilted his head to the breeze and drummed his hands on the wheel of a garish sports car. The engine idled while Noct hunched over on his knees a few feet away, retching into the grass. Noct could feel the open door of the Amicitia home behind him, a black pit stretching wide, the heat of eyes at the back of his neck. It was as if the...body...that had once been Jared was staring at him, pleading with a voice that rang too low for the human ear to register. Noct grabbed the wall beside him and hauled himself up, lifting his gaze to the back seat of the car.

Eight-year-old Talcott was shaking, sitting half in Iris Amicitia's lap, arms wrapped around her neck. She held him tight, and her face, illuminated by the strips of lightning that snaked around her, Gladio, and Clarus in a makeshift cage, was cold and hard. Noct looked away.

"Let them go," he said. His father helped him to his feet, his own face pale with shock. This was what he'd summoned, Noct realized. A man with a cheery smile and a fondness in his eyes, who announced himself while stepping over what could only be loosely called a corpse.

"Of course I'll let them go," Ardyn said. Regis' hand on Noct's shoulder tightened. "As soon as I'm assured that my family is safe. Get in."

Noct looked at Gladio, who had an arm around Iris, an eye on the cage of light around them. "You don't have to do this," he said.

"I know," Ardyn said. "Generous of me, is it not? My master always said I was uncommonly kind. That," he added, twisting round to address the silent, breathless Amicitia family, "would be your ancestor, Izunia. I myself was called Ardyn Izunia for nearly five hundred years, did you know? His name on my heart."

He tugged down his collar, and Gladio winced. Iris turned Talcott's head to her shoulder, and Noct saw the flicker of an ugly brand under Ardyn's collarbone before he straightened his shirt again, turning back to the wheel. "We haven't all day, nephews."

Noct broke Gladio's gaze and took a breath. They had no choice. Not really. He stepped forward, and Ardyn's smile grew soft. 

"Good boy," he said. 

Noct sat between Regis and Ardyn, so close that he could smell the blood and smoke on Ardyn's jacket. His ancestor winked at him, then started up the car with a toothy grin.

"I only just learned how to work this machine," he said, and Regis lurched forward an inch, a hand on Noct's chest. "But it's an absolute marvel. What a grand new world this is, don't you agree?"

Behind them, Talcott sobbed softly into Iris' shirt. Noct ground his teeth together, and the car jerked out of the drive, veering into the street with a screech of tires.

"I expect you have questions," Ardyn shouted, as the Amicitia house disappeared behind a row of apartments. 

"Yeah!" Noct shouted back. "I can think of a few! Like why are you here? How are you _Ardyn?_ Why the hell did you--" Regis yanked Noct down, his grip tight on Noct's shirt.

"How am I myself?" Ardyn asked. "I didn't expect my descendants to become philosophers. The universe continues to surprise me, it seems. But as for why I'm here? Simple, my boy. I'm here for _you._ "

Noct grabbed the dashboard as Ardyn wheeled the car into the wrong lane of traffic. "Oh, gods."

"No gods required," Ardyn said. "I always come when I am called."

At his side, Regis pinched his lips and looked away. Noct searched for the tell-tale flash of sirens, but despite Ardyn's erratic driving, the magic sizzling inches from the Amicitias' faces, and the fact that they were all nearly falling out of the car, none came. It was as though they were cloaked, silent as well as invisible, roaring out of the city and into the cold air of the desert.

Where Ardyn stopped the car suddenly, spun the wheel in both hands until the tires groaned, and took a sharp left into the dust.

They stopped a few minutes later, only a couple hundred yards from Hammerhead, the starry sky winking above them.

"I have a game I'd like to play," Ardyn said, turning to the Amicitias. "It's called karmic irony."

"Ardyn," Regis said. 

"It happens like this," Ardyn said. "You four will leave this car and take in this lovely fresh air. Have a walk. Stretch your legs. And in a day or so, or perhaps an hour, I'll find you. I'll find you, and I'll find every ally you seek out, every friend you call upon, every shack you think will shelter you. Perhaps I'll kill you, when next we meet. Perhaps I'll take one of your children. Perhaps I'll put you in chains and drag you behind me for a few hours, only to let you go again. But your time will come."

He rubbed a smear of blackness under his eye, swiping a smudge over his cheekbone. "I'll let one of you live long enough to carry on the line, of course," he said. "I may even let you breathe for a while, have children, see those children marry and raise little brats of their own. But I'll always be on your heels. One day, you will wonder if there was ever a time when you didn't feel hunted, when you didn't have to run from town to town, from haven to tent to cave. And that day, that moment of realization, is when I will finally end your family's legacy."

"Wait."

It took Noct a second to register that he'd said the word aloud, short and sharp in the stunned silence. Ardyn looked his way, amber eyes half-lidded, and Noct struggled not to shrink against the seat. "No," he said again. "That's not how this should end."

"Oh." Ardyn shrugged. "I can certainly kill them now, if you prefer."

"Not like that," Noct said quickly, as the lightning cage shivered. "I mean. You already scared them enough. Just let them go, Dad and I can leave, and we can call a truce."

Ardyn ran a finger under his cuffs. "Amicitias never keep their promises," he said.

"Give us a chance." That was Gladio, his face inches from the cage, hair lifting off his neck and curling with static. "Please."

"I haven't heard one of your kind beg in centuries," Ardyn said. "I do miss that. Very well. Let's change the rules. You four will have... Oh, three days will be sufficient... to find the first haven the Caelums founded, when we disappeared into the wilds."

"The first..." Clarus' voice was stilted, thick with panic. " _No one_ has found that haven. Some say it doesn't exist--"

"You're hunters, aren't you?" Ardyn asked. "Then it should be easy. I'll take... This one," he added, and flapped his hand. The cage lifted from Clarus, Iris, and Talcott, forming a thick rope that wound itself around Gladio's neck. "To keep you motivated."

"Gladdy, no," Iris choked, but Gladio edged away, lifting his hands.

"We'll be fine, Iris," he said. "Don't worry. Just. Just go."

"Your time starts now," Ardyn said. Iris reached out to Gladio, and the rope tightened. "No tearful goodbyes, please. I've long since lost my taste for dramatics." 

Reluctantly, staring at Gladio the whole time, Clarus, Iris, and Talcott slipped out of the car and into the desert.

"Wonderful," Ardyn said, and started the car again. He turned a brilliant smile to Noctis, flashing white teeth against lips stained ashen with shadow. "Now, let's take you boys to safety, shall we?"

 

\---

 

They stopped for the evening in a small caravan by a gas station, where Gladio was backed into the wall while Regis whispered to Ardyn. Whatever he meant to say must have fallen through, however, as soon as Regis' leg buckled and he sank onto the fold-out bed with a hiss of pain.

Noct reached for him, but Ardyn found him first. Ardyn's hands were gentle, his touch deft as he slid his fingers over the inflamed skin of Regis' knee, and he lowered his voice, kneeling at Regis' feet like a knight before his king.

"Regis," he said. "Why, exactly, have you been drawing magic from your own body?"

Regis and Noct exchanged a brief glance, and Ardyn's expression darkened. "You didn't know," he said. "Neither of you know how to build a ward before you cast?"

"My father..." Noct perked up at Regis' voice--he _never_ spoke of Noct's grandfather-- "didn't approve of using magic. I was largely self-taught."

"And you summoned me without killing yourself?" Ardyn asked. He rubbed Regis' knee. "Remarkable. Then attend, my boy, and I'll teach you a ward..."

Noct looked back to Gladio, who was holding his neck taut against his collar, and crouched next to him. Gladio flinched, but Noct just grabbed the ring of lightning in both hands, slowly stretching it apart.

"Ah, Noct?" Ardyn called.

"He won't run," Noct said, and yanked the rope apart, dispelling it. Gladio let out a heavy, short breath, then another, and another, until Noct was holding his chest and glancing back at Ardyn, hoping Gladio wasn't loud enough to distract him.

"Easy," Noct said. "Easy." He pulled up his own magic, only dimly aware of Ardyn's bewildering description of wards behind him, and green light rose to his fingers. Gladio watched him, eyes wild, until his breathing started to slow at last, the tension in his shoulders falling slack. Tears stood out on his cheeks, and he tipped his head back against the wall, grinding his teeth together.

"I'm sorry about your butler," Noct whispered.

"He wasn't just..." Gladio closed his eyes. "He raised us. Gods. Poor Talcott."

"Dad didn't know what he was summoning," Noct said. "He didn't know what would--"

"And that makes it better?" Gladio asked.

Noct held his gaze. "I don't want to play this game, but sure. Do you think not knowing what you were doing made hunting us to extinction better?"

Gladio's jaw tightened. "You lost someone."

"Everyone." Noct sat back on his heels. "We lost everyone. I never even met my mom. She died in the car on the way to the hospital."

Gladio tilted his head. "You couldn't call someone to come to your..." his voice trailed off at Noct's pointed silence, and he scowled. "Oh."

"Yeah."

They sat next to each other, watching Ardyn guide Regis through a warding spell. Magic flickered around them, like a faulty wall breaking apart and reforming, slowly closing in until it lay flush to Regis' skin.

"So it's really just you?" Gladio asked. Noct nodded. "It's funny. No one ever said you guys could heal."

"The main branch of the Caelum line were meant to be healers." Noct jumped at the sound of Ardyn's voice, and craned his neck up to find his ancestor standing before him, blocking the caravan light. "It seems Noctis is one of the few remaining in his line to carry our legacy. Let me see you work on your father."

"I don't--"

"Come now, don't be shy," Ardyn said. He slid his slow gaze to Gladio. "You stay where you are." 

Noct reluctantly pushed himself to his feet and headed over to Regis, who was still massaging his knee.

"Need a potion, Dad?" he asked. Regis winced and waved a hand back and forth, and Noct summoned a soda from the Armiger.

Ardyn caught it out of the air. "Excuse me," he said. " _What_ is this?"

"It's better if I work through a conduit," Noct said through gritted teeth, lunging for the soda. Ardyn pulled it out of reach. 

"Liquid works well enough," Ardyn said. "Saltwater, certainly. But this?" He cracked open the can. "Gods, how innovative. And utterly useless. Here." Scarlet light flashed in his free hand, and he tossed Noct a lump of dirty crystal, misshapen and stained. "There's your conduit."

Noct looked down at the crystal, uncertain. Still, the way Ardyn had walked Regis through the spell, gentle, careful, his tone fond... Noct bent to his father's knee and drew his magic to his fingers, letting it drip into the crystal.

He gasped, jolted like a man caught in the charged air before a lightning strike, as his magic rushed out of him, pouring into the crystal with the force of a wave. He tried to wrench his hands away, but they were locked, bound by magic to the rock in his hands. Regis grabbed his shoulders, and he heard the shuffle of Gladio rising to his feet, the creak of the floor beneath his weight.

Then Ardyn was there, behind him, his broad hands cupping Noct's, soft hair brushing his cheek. "Build a gate," Ardyn said, in a low voice that hooked into Noct's mind. "Not a wall. A gate, with a sieve. Slow the magic first."

Noct tried to breathe the way his father taught him, in through his nose, hold, out through his mouth. It was easier to build a gate than a wall; The gaps _wanted_ to be there, spacing themselves around the mental block that Noct was tentatively forming. At last, the magic slowed to a trickle, and Noct pulled away, looking down at a crystal that shone with a bright, brilliant green light.

"Perfect," Ardyn said. "It could be one of mine."

Noct tried to remember the corpse in the living room. Talcott's sobs in the back seat. Iris' cold stare. But there was a part of him that wanted Ardyn to stay, wanted his hands to guide Noct through every spell their family had forgotten, every technique lost on the long search for freedom. He let the crystal fall to Regis' leg, and watched the magic soak into his nerves, soothing strained muscle, reducing the swell at his joints. 

"How'd we forget this?" Noct asked, looking up at his dad. Regis shrugged a shoulder. 

"It was perverted," Ardyn said, drawing back. "Like all magic, twisted from its true purpose. I was to be the healer who cleansed the Scourge, once." His smile was wan, the dark stain at his eyes spreading like ink. "But it was more efficient for my masters to turn my magic on their enemies. How useful it is to have a mage who can drain a man's life from his veins! How devastating a force, the power that comes when a healer ingests the Scourge, taking on the power of a daemon. I alone," he said, blackness dripping down his cheeks, "was responsible for the loss of over ten thousand, before they deemed me too dangerous to use."

He lay a hand on Noct's cheek, and Noct held himself still, skin crawling at the clammy chill of Ardyn's palm.

"A mage like you must be protected," he said. "Your father has done well enough, so far. Now," he didn't so much smile as bare his teeth, "it's my turn."


	9. Chapter 9

Noct only had enough time to take a short step back, knocking his legs against the caravan kitchenette, before Ardyn turned once again to Gladio. It was like a light switching on, the windows of a house bursting, revealing the fire and smoke coiled tight within. Ardyn took two heavy steps towards Gladio, who shifted his feet, bracing himself for impact.

"Tell me," Ardyn said. "Do you still collar mages, in this day and age?"

"Doesn't matter what I say," Gladio said. His eyes were wide, gaze fixed on Ardyn, steady as a rabbit staring down a fox. "You'll kill us anyway. We could find the haven tonight and you'll still do it."

Ardyn shrugged. "True." His hand shot out, and Noct started forward just as Gladio was slammed against the wall of the caravan. Ardyn's fingers squeezed, and Gladio grabbed at his arm, searching for a nerve.

"That would almost work," Ardyn said, blinking at the marks Gladio made on his skin, "if I were an ordinary man. Noctis. _This_ is the gift the Amicitias bequeathed to me. The reversal of healing. First, we start with pain."

"Ardyn," Regis said, as Gladio let out a thin, terrible keening sound, his hands going rigid, feet twisting beneath him in wordless agony. Noct took hold of Ardyn's hand and tried to yank it back, but it was like tugging at a steel beam.

"Then we drain his heart," Ardyn said, in that same quiet, affable tone. Noct hurriedly threw up a wall, but it shattered when it tried to form around Ardyn's hand. Desperate, Noct remembered the way the mage traps had pulled his own magic away from him, ropes of it binding him in place. Magic wasn't a mental abnormality, like most of the world believed. It was physical. A pool of power that Noct could dip into, could grasp and twist to his liking.

He took a breath and reached for the spreading tendrils of Ardyn's magic. He hooked his fingers in it, dragged at it, pulled it from where it clung like cobwebs to Gladio's skin. It came to him reluctantly, not smooth and pliable like the magic Noct used, but dull and heavy, leaving an invisible residue on his hands. Noct rolled it in his palm, and fell back as Ardyn's hands clamped over his, enclosing the magic in his fists. 

Behind Ardyn, Gladio collapsed to the floor, gasping. Regis slowly rose from the bed.

"Never do that again," Ardyn hissed. He pushed Noct against the kitchenette, his great bulk casting a shadow over his face. "Never touch my magic. Never interfere with my spells. I do not begrudge you your privileged life--"

 _Privileged?_ Noct thought. He opened his mouth to protest, and spotted the old scars around Ardyn's neck. The darkness in his eyes. The rage that burned so close to the surface.

"But there's a name," Ardyn spat, "for mages who lick the boot that rests on their neck."

Noct said could feel Ardyn taking his magic back, scraping it off his palms. "I'm sorry they turned you into a killer. I am. But I'm not letting you do the same to me."

Ardyn stared at him a moment, then twisted at the sound of Regis' voice.

"I'll thank you to unhand my son," Regis said. He had a hand on Gladio's shoulder, oddly proprietary for a man who'd run him through nearly a week before. "What you've done has only set the eyes of Niflheim and Lucis on our family. If you kill the Amicitias, there _will_ be retribution."

Ardyn laughed, releasing Noct at last. "We used to number in the hundreds," he said. "If I hadn't slept, we could be _ruling_ Lucis."

"We don't want that," Noct said. He bent down at Gladio's side. Gladio was sweating, his face ash-grey, his eyes unfocused. When Noct swung an arm around his shoulders, Gladio's face twisted in pain. "Shit. Sorry, big guy. I have to move you this time."

He could see Ardyn watching him out of the corner of his eye as he stood, Gladio's limp body a dead weight against his side. Regis stepped between him and Ardyn, a hand upraised, voice low, but Noct could still feel his gaze on him, even as he dragged Gladio into the small bathroom.

The bath was hooked up to a faucet outside, and the water that fell over Gladio's heaving chest smelled faintly of sulfur. Noct yanked Gladio's boots off, but didn't bother with the rest of his clothes, letting the bath fill almost to the brim before he turned off the tap. He did strip off his own borrowed shirt and pants, though, kicking them into the corner of the bathroom.

Gladio lay in the bath, water sloshing over his neck, his eyes flickering closed.

"It's alright," Noct whispered. "It's like a potion. A really big potion."

He stepped into the tub.

Water ran over the cheap tile of the bathroom floor as Noct straddled Gladio's waist. He dragged Gladio's shirt up to expose his chest, and placed both hands over his heart. He tried to think of the water around him as the surface of a crystal, and sent his magic pouring from his hands and into the bath.

The water began to glow, dimly at first, swirling with eddies of green light until the entire room was consumed by it. Gladio's breathing slowed, and his heartbeat, so weak and stuttering before, thrummed against Noct's hands. Gladio lifted his head and squinted up at Noct, who shone like a small star, the light of his magic flashing in his eyes.

"Gods," Gladio whispered.

Noct spread his hands out over Gladio's chest, holding himself up as his magic ebbed. His hair hung in his eyes, and he was breathing hard, hunching over Gladio as the bathwater rolled around them both. He caught a glimpse of Ardyn in the doorway, but the look on his face wasn't one of betrayal or rage, as Noct expected. It was more of a deep, horrible grief, but Noct didn't get more than a flash of it before Ardyn was gone, turning from the door with a swirl of his jacket.

"Thought I'd died," Gladio said, in a soft voice. Noct looked down and shrugged.

"Yeah," Noct said. "It was kind of touch and go for a second."

"No, not..." Gladio shifted, and Noct slipped, sliding to his lap. "Just now. You were... made of light."

"It's called magic," Noct said. He climbed out of the bath, adding to the growing puddle on the floor, and held out a hand. "Come on. It's not over yet."

Gladio hesitated, then took Noct's hand, gripping it tight.

"The way you say it," he said, "I almost believe you."


	10. Chapter 10

The caravan, when Noct helped a sodden Gladio through the bathroom door, was empty. The front door was propped open with a brick while a rare cool breeze drifted in from outside, and he could hear voices murmuring just out of range. Noct called a towel from his armiger and hastily wrapped it around himself while he and Gladio scrambled for the door, only to find Ardyn standing with Regis, who was showing him faded, yellowing photographs. 

"Back inside with you," Ardyn said, raising a hand. Gladio winced as a gust of wind pushed him through the door. Noct was untouched, and hopped down to the asphalt with only a twitch of Ardyn's eyebrow in response.

"Noctis." Regis' voice had that light, casual air it always took when Noct was in trouble, and years of conditioning drew Noct to attention. "Do you remember when your mother and I took you here?" 

Noct glanced at Ardyn, then down at the photo in Regis' hands. It showed Aulea, her fine black hair blowing wildly in the wind, standing before a canyon with one arm on a wooden railing. She was laughing at the camera--At Regis--and her cheeks lifted the same way Noct's did when he smiled. It was one of the few connections Noct clung to as a child, when Regis went quiet and the loss of her lay like a vast ocean between them.

"Sure," Noct said, his tongue curling around the lie. "I remember."

"It was a remarkable place," Regis said. "A shame that they closed down the mines." 

Noct stared down at the picture. Mines? There were mines near keycatrich, but there wasn't a canyon. He examined the landscape behind Aulea, taking in the dusty red rocks at her back, the clear sky, the wind. So she could have been closer to Galdin, maybe. There was a road there, sunken into the rock, that could be mistaken for a canyon at a glance.

"I really should put these away," Regis said, taking the photo from Noct's fingers. He met Noct's eyes, and his gaze was hard, his brows tilted with that strange, unfathomable sorrow that always overtook him, those days when the road stretched too long and their food too little. "In some cases, the past is better left buried."

Noct did not look at Ardyn. "Yeah," he said. "Guess so."

Regis turned away, his face to the grey light of dawn. "Leave me with Ardyn for a time, Noctis," he said. "Keep an eye on the Amicitia boy."

Noct hovered at the doorstep, looking back at his father. He couldn't shake the feeling that this, in some way, was a farewell. Like always, the right words lodged in his throat, half formed and uncertain, and he could only grip the doorframe tight and nod, swallowing thickly.

"Night, Dad," he said.

"Goodnight, Noctis."

Noct closed the door behind him. He let the towel fall to his ankles and stepped out of it, summoning a pair of black pants and a baggy tee. He wrestled into them while Gladio watched, wary, by the bed.

"Come on," Noct whispered. "We're leaving."

"What?" Gladio lowered his own voice, stepping back. "How?"

"Through the window." Noct summoned a screwdriver and climbed onto the counter under the far window, facing away from where Ardyn and Regis were sitting. "And shut up, okay?"

Gladio muttered to himself, but fell into silence as Noct started to unscrew the glass panels of the window. He held them gingerly, just like his dad taught him, making sure not to scrape the sides or let it slip and crash to the concrete. He handed the panels to Gladio, who set them down on the bed.

"Where'd you learn that?" Gladio asked. 

"Gotta know how to escape from anywhere," Noct said, and slid through the open window, dropping soundlessly to the ground. Gladio followed, a little clumsily, but his feet only knocked the wall of the caravan twice. "Right. Let's go."

"He'll still kill us," Gladio protested, as Noct led him around the caravan towards the car. "If he finds I'm gone, he'll go after Dad and Iris and Talcott."

"No, he won't," Noct said. "Because he'll have something more important to worry about." He climbed into the front seat of Ardyn's stolen car, relieved to find the keys still in the ignition. "Like the last of his line getting kidnapped right under his nose. Get in."

Gladio stared at him.

"Get the fuck in, Gladio."

Gladio slowly climbed into the passenger's seat.

"Okay," Noct said, and turned the key, bringing the engine to life. "Time to go to hell, I guess."

He took off with a screech of tires, sure that no matter how quietly he tried to pull out, Ardyn would catch on anyways. So he settled for slamming on the gas and turning off his headlights, roaring off down the dusty road to the mines by Galdin. 

"You got a plan?" Gladio shouted, as the lights of the caravan faded behind them. Noct shrugged. "No. No, you gotta answer this one. You do have a plan?"

"Sort of!" Noct shouted back. Gladio groaned and covered his face with both hands. "Dad has one, anyway! I interpreted."

"Your dad tried to kill me," Gladio shouted.

"And you tried to sell us to the army," Noct said. "You're gonna keep losing this one, big guy."

Gladio settled down, looking back at the empty road behind them.

"Headlights," he said. "Two miles off."

"Fuck." Noct drummed his fingers on the wheel. "You know about any mines in the area?"

"The Balouve mines," Gladio said, "Dad had stock in them, when I was a kid, but they hit a bunch of quartz and shut it down. No future in rock."

Noct cursed. "Quartz is a crystal," he said. "That's what Dad was telling me. Quartz is a crystal."

Gladio looked at him blankly, but there wasn't any time to explain. It seemed like Noct's whole lifewas spent running just out of time. He spotted a defunct mine sign and swerved into the dirt road next to it, breaking a wooden barrier to splinters. Gladio hissed and covered his head with his arms.

Behind them, the solitary headlights on the highway drew closer, wobbling erratically in the early morning shadow. Noct slammed on the brakes and threw open the car door. 

"I hope you can fight," Noct said, as Gladio wobbled out into the dirt. He summoned a sword and tossed it, and Gladio caught it one-handed. "Because we have to get to the bottom of the mines before Ardyn does, and call it a hunch, but I don't think the daemons are gonna slow him down."

 

\---

 

The workers of the Balouve mines did not, as Clarus Amicitia claimed, close down their operation because the low-grade mythril they were mining ran low. They didn't set up a wire fence, a sturdy wooden barrier, and six brightly-painted warning signs for the sake of drunk teenagers who might sneak in and get caught in a cave-in. No, the miners of Balouve had their reasons, but they didn't bother to share them with the bewildered contractors who wondered where their resources had gone. They went back to their homes in silence, saying nothing of what they'd found when the generators died and the dark closed in. They didn't speak of the mines at all. 

Noct, striding through the narrow tunnels with a sword in hand, was starting to figure it out.

It wasn't just the goblins. Goblins he could handle, even if they did chitter behind them and dart in and out of the small sphere of light made by Noct's hand. They were drawn to his magic, their eyes fixed on the flickering tongues of fire that lapped at his fingers, and it was easy enough for Noct or Gladio to come in with their blades out, spilling black blood over the stone.

It was the silence that got to him. Because sometimes, when all he could hear was the tramp of his feet and the hiss of breath, Noct caught an echo of something else, far below. A scraping sound, like metal dragging over stone.

"A sword," Gladio said, once. "Sounds like a sword."

"Do me a favor and shut up," Noct said, and Gladio laughed a little, breathy and short. 

"So," Gladio whispered, as they climbed up the steps to a metal walkway. Massive fans lay still against the wall, their blades thick with rust. "What're you gonna do, when this is over?"

"Pretty sure that's up to you," Noct said. His footsteps boomed on the metal grille. 

"I ain't talkin' about that," Gladio said. "I mean if you--If you didn't have to worry about this."

"Gods, I don't know." Noct sighed. "I'd get a house. Somewhere nice, with a lake, where I can look after Dad when he gets too old to work. There was this place in Duscae, right near Lestallum..." He raised his hand, casting light over the high walls. "But I'll settle for a new car, I guess. Or a van. Dad said no RVs, but I bet I can swing a van."

Gladio didn't speak for a minute. Noct heard that low scrape again, and raised his voice just a little. "Maybe I'll do magic for a living," he said. "So long as we're talking about impossible things. I'll do the kind of stuff Talcott liked. Roses out of ice, lightning shapes, that sort of thing. You know, Dad can even make a dragon out of the fire, sometimes? He did it during New Years, once."

"Would've liked to see that," Gladio said, in a low, dull voice.

"Yeah, I bet."

They made it down the next level in silence. The daemons seemed to be keeping out of sight--Noct caught one skittering out of the light, heading back up the way they came. Almost like it was running from something. Again, the scraping echoed in the distance, and Noct tightened his grip on his sword.

"Shouldn't've set that trap," Gladio said, throwing Noct out of his thoughts.

"What?"

"The first one." Gladio kept his face turned away, so all Noct could see was the harsh line of his profile. "If you have to hunt someone, you're already on the wrong side."

"I could've told you that for free," Noct said. He wasn't sure if Gladio was asking for forgiveness. He wasn't sure he even wanted to give it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But there was a difference, he thought, between that and what Noct was doing, going into the dark to save a family that would have seen him made into a conscripted killer.

Made into Ardyn.

"Shit," he said. Gladio paused, a step behind him, and Noct stared into the darkness, dragging a hand through his hair. "I don't know how I'm gonna do this."

 

-

 

"Oh, look," Ardyn said, in a dry voice that crackled with condescension. "My dear old machine."

"Car," Regis said. He held onto the door of their stolen vehicle, his face pale. "The word you mean is car."

"Is it?" Ardyn strode across the dusty parking lot, adjusting a grey hat over his wavy hair. It cast his face into shadow, even with the morning sun gilding the rocks at their feet. He bent to examine a tangle of wire and charred wood at the mouth of a wide entrance into the hillside. "Goodness, what a mess. This would be a mine, then, would it? What a shame," he added, looking at Regis, the humor draining from his eyes, "that they had to close it down."

Regis straightened, his hands curling into fists. Ardyn sighed deeply and adjusted the fit of his sleeves.

"I like you, Regis," he said. "You're a reasonable man. You understand the necessity of sacrifice, and you see the world as it is, with no illusions. You would upend the world if it meant keeping our dear Noctis safe."

Regis looked past Ardyn's shoulder, into the dark entrance to the mine. Ardyn stepped closer, and Regis summoned his jagged sword, which sagged in his hold. Ardyn broke into a wide, fond smile, like a teacher watching their beloved pupil work themselves into a corner.

"Your love for your son is admirable, my boy, but it blinds you." Ardyn tilted up his hat. "I'd already planned on taking him from you, after this was done. This nonsense, however--"

He stopped, his smile frozen on his ruined face, as rock cracked behind him. The mine was blocked by a thick, gleaming wall of magic, shimmering in the sunrise like a panel of frosted glass. Ardyn scowled at it, his face twisting for a fraction of a second into a mask of rage, and then he composed himself with startling speed, his expression going smooth as a slate. 

"Oh, well," he said, turning back to Regis, tainted magic sliding into his hands and pooling in his mouth. "In the end, we do only need _one_ Caelum to carry on the line."


	11. Chapter 11

Ardyn's voice came to them in the next level, an echo sliding along the smooth stone walls like a wind pushing at their back.

"I must say," Ardyn said, as goblins scrambled over themselves to flee from the narrow tunnel beyond. "Keeping this family from walking to your deaths is harder than herding cats. At least cats are grateful."

"Only half the time," Noct said, raising his sword as though to ward himself from the darkness. Gladio grimaced.

"I'm afraid," Ardyn continued, in a light, conversational tone, "that I had to get rather harsh with our Regis. He's a good boy when he isn't openly defying me, but examples must be made. He should be fine so long as we return to him within the hour."

Noct staggered to a stop. Gladio raised a hand to his shoulder, anchoring him. "He's bluffing," Gladio said. "He'd never hurt one of you."

"Don't presume, little slaver," Ardyn said. "Sometimes, pain is the only lesson that will stick. I'm sure he will be much more amenable when this is done."

Noct took a shaky step forward. "It's a trap," he said. "Dad's okay."

"Yeah," Gladio said. "We're almost there."

There was no way of knowing that, not really, but Noct nodded anyways, letting Gladio take the lead through the narrow tunnel. It was a tight fit, and there was a brief, terrifying moment when Gladio had to carefully inch his way back. He pulled off his shirt and left it in the tunnel, pushing his considerable bulk through a gap that seemed too small even for Noct.

"Fifty minutes," Ardyn said. "If you want your father to live, Noct, you're heading in the wrong direction."

"Shut up," Noct hissed, grinding his teeth together. He pushed himself through the gap, falling out through the other side to hit Gladio's back. They both rocked forward, but Gladio was like a wall of muscle, his feet braced evenly on the cool stone.

"I blame myself, really," Ardyn said, as Noct peered down a set of stairs into a small, poorly-structured cavern. Geodes lined the walls, fractured crystals jutting out from cracks in the stone, gleaming red with the light of Noct's magic. "I expended too much energy, cloaking our people. They thought I'd died in the attempt, poor things, and gave me a proper send-off, which is all well and good until you wake to find your people have turned into a handful of weak, frightened creatures with no true knowledge of the art."

Noct descended the stair, and stopped at the last step as the sound of metal over rock ground in his ears.

"Potions!" Ardyn cried. Gladio whirled, his blade at the ready, as a shadow in the corner shifted. "Walls! In my day, my brother could crack mountains. I could drain the life from entire armies, bring a man back from the brink of death, weave patterns of lightning in the sky."

A foot stepped out of the darkness. For an instant, Noct thought there was another person in the mine, some unlucky traveler stuck in the lower levels. But then he saw the blackness dripping from the man's face, the fire in his eyes, the way the sleeves of his robe twisted and shaped themselves like a live creature.

The daemon opened a mouth that was nothing more than a black hole in its expressionless face, and Noct thought of Ardyn leaning over him in the caravan, his eyes thick with shadow. Then the daemon raised its sword, and there was no more room for thought.

Gladio only just got his sword up in time to block the creature's blow before it was on Noctis, robes billowing behind it in like smoke. Noct warped just out of range and met its attack, skidding backwards into the wall. He warped again, landing at Gladio's feet, and Gladio wrapped an arm around him, tucking him into his side as he brought his sword into a defensive position. Noct felt the strike reverberate in Gladio's body, and he wrenched himself free to jab at the daemon. His sword passed through it, and the daemon's body simply formed around the hole he'd made.

"Fuck," Noct whispered. He didn't want to use up his magic, but if the daemon was only partly corporeal--He yanked Gladio back by his hair as the daemon closed in, and the blade barely grazed the skin of Gladio's neck.

The whole exchange only took a few seconds, but it was already over. There wasn't enough time for Noct to cast a protective wall. There wasn't enough time for fire, if fire could touch it, or lightning, or even ice. There was just time to stare up into the daemon's burning eyes as it charged them one last time, sword upraised. 

Then it halted, jerked back as though pulled by an invisible string. Its eyes dimmed, its hands shifting on the hilt of the blade. Then the left side of its face collapsed.

"Gods," Gladio said. He grabbed Noct by the arm and pulled him back. The daemon's chest caved in, then its arms, its jaw unhinging and sinking into the skin of its neck, its limbs twisting and joining together, folding in on itself like a grotesque puppet. It shrank as it collapsed, the remains of its head jerking, until it was nothing more than a swirl of blackness sinking into Ardyn Caelum's outstretched hand.

"There we go," Ardyn said. His arm was soaked to the elbow in what looked like oil, which colored his veins and fell in fat drops to the floor. Ardyn smiled, and in the darkness of the cave, his eyes were bright with the heat of an internal flame. "Isn't that better?"

"I don't want to do this," Noct said. The oily liquid was seeping into Ardyn's skin, and Noct caught something in Ardyn's arm convulse, a muscle twitching out of true. Ardyn licked at his thumb, and it seemed almost like an unconscious gesture, the blood of a daemon staining his perfect teeth. "I really don't."

"I know," Ardyn said. Gladio tried to step in Noct's way, but Noct shoved him aside, frantically trying to warn him off with his eyes alone. "You're soft. It's sweet, in a helpless, newborn-fawn sort of way. I admire what little freedom you must have had to cultivate it."

Noct pressed himself into the wall. Shards of crystal dug into his back, and he held his hand to one, pushing hard enough to feel a trickle of blood run down his palm. 

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, maybe I'm soft."

"That's alright," Ardyn said. He held Noct's chin with his clean hand, fingers scraping under Noct's jaw. "You can't help the way you were raised. We'll fix that, you and I."

Noct lifted his arm, catching Ardyn's other hand, and Ardyn's smile twisted. "I'll pass," Noct said, and pulled Ardyn towards him, pressing their joined hands to the wall.

Then, with a wrench that he felt in his very bones, Noctis opened the gate.

Noct had always thought of his magic as a pool. Present, but finite, slowly refilling itself as he slept. Now, with Ardyn writhing in his grip, Noct could feel the small, insistent tug of the spring that fed his power. He widened it, tugging at the edges like one would dig their nails into a crack, dragging it open. His magic roared through him, his own body nothing but a path for the magic to follow, as first one crystal, then the next, glowed in a spreading circle of healing light. And as the circle grew, the viscous blood that coated Ardyn's hand started to drain outwards, painting the center of the circle a dark, speckled black. 

"Noct!" Noct was dimly aware of hands on his shoulders, Gladio's voice in his ears, but all he could do was open his mouth in a soundless scream as the entire cavern flooded with light. The shadows were fleeing Ardyn's eyes, pulled free by the magic in the crystals, by the magic that made Noct's skin glow in uneven patches, like the dappled light at the bottom of a shallow pond. 

"You..." Noct felt the crystal shatter under his hands, and jerked Ardyn to the side, seeking out an untainted piece of the wall. "You shouldn't've... told me. About reversing..."

Ardyn hissed out a sharp breath. He sagged, his hand stuck fast, his face awash with pain. 

If Ardyn had spent his life reversing his magic, taking in daemons and absorbing the scourge that tainted their blood, then a true healing would be devastating. If he could weaken him enough, draw out whatever the daemons had infected, maybe he could—  
No.

Noct could already see it, even as he sank to his own knees at Ardyn's side. The magic that had sustained Ardyn for so long was bound to the sickness he'd ingested. If Noct didn't stop, didn't pull Ardyn away... He tamped down on his magic, using all the strength left in him to build a wall, but it was too late. 

“Wait,” Noct said. “Wait, we don’t have to…” He pulled at Ardyn’s hands, but Ardyn shook his head, the skin at the corners of his mouth gone grey. 

“It’s been a long time,” Ardyn said, “since I’ve been anything close to a human man.”

"We could've been." Noct tipped forward, bumping his forehead into Ardyn's. "Could've been a family, maybe."

Ardyn's laugh was harsh. 

"But you're wrong about me," Noct said. "About Dad." Ardyn's eyes flickered closed for a second, and he gripped Noct by the neck, his fingers slipping. "We've never been weak."

Ardyn's hand trailed up to Noct's cheek, cupping it lightly even as his skin turned ashen, his other hand falling free of the wall. His face was cracked, like a shattered porcelain doll hastily glued together, and light ran through the cracks as he brushed a thumb under Noct's eye.

"Oh, Noct," he said. 

He closed his eyes, and with one last, heaving sigh, his body broke apart, nothing but flakes of ash drifting in a pile of empty clothes. Noct grabbed at Ardyn's jacket, hunching over it, his head pulsing with pain.

"Noct." Someone was calling his name. Who was left? They were all gone, all of them, ash in his mouth, under his fingers—He looked up, up, into the eyes of a slaver, the scion of the first Amicitia to clasp iron round a Caelum’s neck.

Noct’s fingers clenched on the jacket. Behind him, he heard the sound of breaking class.

“We have to hurry,” Gladio said.

Noct’s vision swam, blurring at the edges. “He didn’t deserve this.”

 

"Noct!" Gladio stepped back as Noct dragged himself to his feet. Noct swayed, stomach roiling. "I'm sorry, but if what he said about your dad was true..."

"Dad," Noct said. Fear clutched him like a fist. "Oh, gods."

One of the crystals in the wall behind him shattered. Then another. Then another. When they broke, the pooling liquid that had once run in Ardyn's veins bubbled and churned. A claw snaked out of the mess, followed by a scaly hand that scratched at the stone.

"Noct, we gotta run," Gladio said. Noct stared at the second arm that pushed through next to the first, oozing with slime. "Focus!"

A firm hand grabbed Noct by the arm and pulled him away from Ardyn's remains. Noct cried out, a short, sharp bark from the back of his throat, but he could barely run, let alone force himself out of Gladio's hold.

"Come on," Gladio said, as they reached the narrow hole in the wall. "I'm gonna pull you through after me, okay?"

Something crashed to the floor behind Noct. He could hear it sloshing on the ground like a fish on a dock, wet and heavy and crackling with bones, and he couldn't seem to hold his breath the way he did before when Gladio tugged at his arm. He tried to inch towards him, but he was only halfway through when he felt something wet touch his leg.

"Keep going," Gladio said. His voice seemed to be coming from a long distance, even though his face was a foot or so away. "Keep pushing, Noct."

A seven-fingered hand curled around Noct's ankle. Something hissed in his ear. He groaned and dragged at he stone with his hands, ripping up his nails, marking the stone with blood as he pulled himself free. Gladio grabbed him around the waist and yanked him out the rest of the way, shaking off whatever had latched to his foot.

"Gotta hurry," Gladio grunted. "Damn. Okay, I got you." He heaved Noct over his shoulder, which would have been embarrassing if Noct weren't being given the perfect view of a host of daemon's trying to squeeze through the crack at once. They looked like a hideous science experiment, an amorphous creature made up of every nightmare that skittered and slithered in Noct's dreams, and Noct clutched at Gladio's shoulders as Gladio began to run. 

He wasn't going to be fast enough. Neither of them would be.

"Gonna try the lift," Gladio said, and Noct swung his head towards him.

"No." They'd ignored the elevators on their way down, too wary of old equipment and daemons with sharp, clever claws.

"We'll die if we don't."

"We'll die anyways," Noct mumbled, as Gladio threw himself into the open door of the lift. Gladio pushed up the lever, and Noct got only one look at a half-formed spider daemon, still slithering out of their cocoon, as the doors clanged shut.

When the doors opened again, the goblins were waiting for them.

They didn't have time to fight. Gladio was hindered by Noct's deadweight at his shoulder, and they both made it out with long, deep lacerations on their legs that bled sluggishly as Gladio hauled them towards the cave entrance. It sounded as though every daemon in Eos were on their heels, a gibbering, slavering army crawling after them, and Gladio let out something that could have been a sob of relief at the first sign of sunlight in the darkness.

He threw Noct into the entrance, and Noct rolled in the dust, squinting his eyes shut against the harsh light of day. Gladio followed after, dragging his right leg and holding a hand to his side. Noct rolled to his hands and knees, and felt something soft under his fingers.

He opened his eyes.

Regis Caelum lay in the shade of a black car, his eyes open, cracked lips parted. Noct held a hand to his neck and held his breath, a whine creeping up his throat.

"He's alive," he said. "His heart's beating, but I don't think it--I don't think he's gonna--"

"Get in the car," Gladio said. He crouched at Regis' side, lifting him in his arms. Noct blinked hard and hauled himself into the back seat, where Gladio was setting down Regis. "There's a hospital an hour's drive from here."

"We don't have an hour," Noct said. "Ardyn said--We don't have--"

"We'll make it," Gladio said. The engine rumbled to life, and Noct, breathing hard, climbed into the seat, crouching over his father. 

Regis' face wasn't just pale. It had the same ashen quality Ardyn's had at the end, like all the blood had been drained from him, replaced with a smoldering fire. Noct blinked again--his eyes stung, and his cheeks felt too hot--and tried to call magic to his hands.

Nothing came. Nothing would come, he knew, for a while. He needed a day at least, with the kind of working he'd done in the cave, but he didn't have a day. He didn't even have an hour.

"Dad," Noct said. His voice sounded high, cracking like it hadn't done in years. "Dad, I'm sorry." He dove into the source of his power, questing into the crack that fed it, the spring that tied his magic to his body, and _pulled._

Light pulsed in his fingers, fading into Regis' skin. Noct cupped his father's face in his hands and pulled at his magic again. His own heartbeat was impossibly loud in his ears, and his stomach heaved as the car bumped over potholes, but he could feel Regis' heartbeat strengthening, just a little.

Hopefully enough.

Noctis no longer had to wonder what it must have felt like for his father all those years ago, driving at breakneck speed down the highway with his wife bleeding out in the back seat. He knew it in his bones, now, knew the taste of it on his tongue, the weight in his limbs. He swallowed metal and the salt of tears, felt his lips crack and bleed as he panted, as breathing became almost too painful to bear, as his hands slipped on his father's face. He fell forward, forehead pressed to his father's, and, for the first time in his life, whispered a prayer drowned by the roaring in his ears.

"Please," Noct whispered, as his heart hammered in his head, rapid-fire and fading, fading. "Astrals. Please."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really didn't want to kill off Ardyn. His lot was 100% a tragedy, and he deserved better than he got in pretty much every aspect of his life/unlife. While he was monstrous, he was using the tools of survival he'd been forced to employ for centuries, and he knew that he'd never have the luxury of choosing the kind of simple life that Noctis wanted.


	12. Chapter 12

**Five Years Later**

 

The lighthouse at Cape Caem was never much of a landmark. With most of the boats passing through Galdin and the pier shut down, the lighthouse was just another way to hook up daemon-warding lights to the outskirts beyond Lestallum. Locals knew the lighthouse keeper's shack as an abandoned squatter's nest for years, and while peddlers stopped in the parking lot to sell beer out of the back of their trucks, no one had reason to venture beyond the gate.

"Luna Nox Fleuret, you get back here with that hat!" 

A young, stocky woman in a white jacket and a bright blue skirt marched down the cobbled path from the house, arms crossed with the air of exasperated parents everywhere. Her blonde hair was pinned up just like that of the small child who went racing down the path ahead of her, and crystal earrings dangled at her shoulders. The girl grabbed the fence and nearly careened into Gladiolus Amicitia, who stood with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the newly-painted house.

"We won't come back if you can't behave yourself," the woman said, shooting a pained smile at Gladio as she passed. She grabbed the child by the collar and turned her around. "Honestly, why you'd want to go see some sort of magician is beyond me. You know what your father says about magic..."

Gladio smiled faintly, scrubbing the beginnings of a beard at his jaw. A metal sign hung on the gate, engraved and painted with fake gold at the edges, declaring the house to be home of:  
 _The Infamous Noct Gar, Magician.  
(Birthdays and Ice Sculptures by Request)_

Beneath it was a hastily-scrawled, yellowing notice with the Amicitia crest at the bottom, declaring the last inspection for magic to have taken place six months before. Gladio stepped around the gate and breathed in the scent of pine and tulips, and passed a row of bright flowers on his way up the path. In the center of the blooms jutted a stone shaped like a crystal, lined with shards of mirror. There was no name on the stone, but Gladio paused there all the same, holding his breath.

A few children were still milling about the yard, babbling excitedly while their parents packed up. A row of stone seats faced a small stage, which was framed by thick black curtains and occupied by a large, smug-looking cat, an equally-smug rabbit, and a basket of roses made out of ice. A man in black was carefully doling out flowers to the kids clustered around him, explaining that they had to wait for them to melt to get to the figurines in the middle.

He straightened as the last kid went scampering off, holding their prize in reverent hands, and pushed dark hair from his eyes. He looked up and met Gladio's gaze, and after a few long, weighted seconds, tilted his head a fraction.

"You're late," he said, as Gladio climbed onto the stage. The cat rubbed against Gladio's ankles, blanketing his pants in fur. 

"Not my fault the roads are shit," Gladio said. "If you lived closer to Insomnia, this wouldn't be a problem."

Noctis snorted. "Not when they know my face," he said. "Come on, help me get Monster Truck to her pen."

"Why the fuck you'd name a rabbit—"

"Watch your goddamn language," Noct said. Gladio grinned. He blocked Monster Truck's path so Noct could scoop her up, and walked with him around the back of the house, the cat at their heels. 

The house had been transformed since Noct took over, dazedly standing in the empty yard with a single bag to his name five years before. Glass chimes hung from the top of the porch, crystals and succulents lined the walkway in colored pots, and cheap paintings were nailed to the wall, stuffed in plastic frames. 

Gladio didn't know what kind of strings his dad had to pull to make the Caelum line effectively disappear, but the official records showed that Noct and Regis died in an escape attempt into the Balouve mines, with medical records from the hospital to prove it. No one would be coming for Noct Gar.

They all needed to rebuild after that night. Talcott couldn't sleep alone for years. Iris shook every time she crossed the living room, and no one so much as set foot in the workshop. Clarus' office was quietly gutted, his retirement papers processed, and Gladio took on a job with some proper hunters out by Hammerhead, ones who went after real monsters.

But he always found himself drawn to Caem, in the end. It was like he'd been tied to Noct somehow, on that harrowing drive through the desert, Noct's skin paling as he drove his own life-force into his father's body. When Gladio pulled up to the emergency entrance to the hospital, they just let him in, set him up in a room next to Noct and Regis, and didn't do more than frown when he limped his way in to watch their still, quiet bodies.

Then, when the dust had cleared from the house walls and his new name was stamped on the door, Noct didn’t let Gladio go past the lighthouse gate for nearly a year. He had to earn the privilege, Noct said, watching him from the doorstep. Just the privilege. Not forgiveness. Even now, climbing up the sturdy wooden steps to the porch, Gladio knew the difference. 

He dutifully held the rabbit while Noct unlocked the door. "How's he doing?" he asked.

"Oh, you know," Noct said. He opened the door wide, and Gladio passed through. "Still writing."

"Don't let out the cold air, Noctis," said a faint, dry voice from the living room. "Ah."

Gladio nodded towards the pile of papers that bracketed Regis Caelum at all sides, threatening to engulf him. Regis sat in a brown, cushioned chair, a cane at his feet, a thick book in his arms. A picture of his wife hung on the wall behind him, in a frame much nicer than the ones outside.

Regis never fully healed from his encounter at the mines, no matter how many times Noct tried to work on his joints and his breathing, but it didn't stop him from making Noct drive him over half of creation, tracking down what little there was of his family's history. Not, it seemed, that Noct minded. He and Regis were often absorbed in their work together, the light from their windows gleaming long into the night. There was already a small book of magic safely hidden in Noct's armiger, so full with annotations and additions that it was bursting at the spine.

"Gladiolus," Regis said.

"Mr. Caelum," said Gladio. 

Noct rolled his eyes, latching up Monster Truck's cage. "So how long are you staying in the area, this time?" he asked. He walked up to Gladio, hooking his fingers in the necklace that hung over Gladio's chest. His knuckles grazed over the scar that slanted above his abs, making Gladio shiver just enough for Noct's teeth to show in response.

"I don't know," Gladio said. He held back the unspoken question that had formed over the years, over the pain of recovery, over the fresh sting of new growth and the fragile foundation of whatever it was they held between them. "How long do you want me?"

"I don't know," Noct repeated. He tugged at the necklace, jerking Gladio forward, and shrugged a shoulder. "Let's find out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we end with the most awkward, tenuous who-knows-what-the-heck-this-is known to man. And it was juuuust a tiny cameo, sure, but I wanted to hint that Luna's family MIGHT be a distant branch of Noct's line. I wonder why Luna's father is so adamant about magic, huh? :3


End file.
